


For the sake of the citizens of Beacon Hills

by BloodRedRose (orphan_account)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Humor, I'm so sorry, M/M, among other things, and anyone interested in derek, and pack McCall being a pack in general, and scott being chased by a girl with a shotgun, and throwing mistletoe at people, lots of stalking derek, someone in the pack needs to be restraining order free, unless someone gets caught stalking, what else am i supposed to tag
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-20
Updated: 2014-03-30
Packaged: 2018-01-13 02:35:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1209586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/BloodRedRose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"No no no, just listen to me, next time Derek dates someone we just throw mountain ash, wolfs bane and mistletoe at her, or - or we could just keep an eye on her if she's like Kate - and this doesn't count as stalking because we're doing this for the whole of Beacon Hills' safety -and then we can just deal with her as soon as possible and not wait till someone's somewhere tied to something!"</p><p>The look of betrayal in Scott face didn't do a thing in stopping Stiles smiling excitedly. Scott was going to fail his first self appointed mission as an alpha and it was going to be Stiles' fault.</p><p>"Yeah, except for the fact that Derek wasn't dating anyone when Jackson was the kanima." Isaac points out distractedly, not breaking off his staring contest with the sky.</p><p>"That's because he was busy training his new pu- pack and embracing his responsibilities and privileges as the alpha of the town, now he's not an alpha and there's no obvious new threat in town so he has all the time in the world to date. I think we should start right away, someone please tell me you know where he is." Stiles finishes hastily and slides down the smooth rock surface in the clearing they all occupied.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"I was half expecting you to bring out a bottle of jack like the last time you dragged me into the woods like this." Scott tells Stiles before facing the sky and sighing tiredly, smiling at the peace around him.

"Last time I didn't know werewolves couldn't get drunk. And besides, last time I was going to get you sad drunk because you were sad, this is the time to get happy drunk." Stiles glances at Scott who lay beside him before facing forward, humming for a moment in content and smiling brightly at nothing in particular.

"Why were you going to get sad drunk last time?" Allison asks, not looking up from where she was scratching on a piece of rock with the tip of an arrow. Scott bits his lips, nudging Stiles for his attention and looking at him pleadingly for a topic change when silence follows Allison's question. Scott wanted to embrace the peace and laze around for as long as possible. It was his first mission as the new alpha in town. New true alpha. New true alpha of beacon hills. Scott sighs letting a goofy smile slip in place and kicks Stiles lightly to stop him from staring.

"Because those were the sad times, lots of sad times actually, lots of sad times with lots of people dying and lots of scary people and not people to look out for. And why do you have that with you Allison." Stiles points at her crossbow accusingly. "That reminds me of some traumatizing times, now is not a traumatizing time. Now is the time for some peace in the middle of the woods with no one coming to interrupt us."

Allison drops the rock before facing Stiles pointedly, raising her eyebrows and smiling. "We're in the middle of the woods Stiles, I can't think of any place more obvious for 'traumatizing times' to come running towards us." She says before picking up her crossbow and smiling wider at the look of realization and mild horror on Stiles' face.

"We could throw a party to celebrate. Instead we're in the middle of the woods. Sitting." Lydia says lightly, staring at the trees in boredom.

"Oh my God you guys appreciate some peace and quiet, it's been minutes in here, how can you be bored already? Parties are not peace and quiet. What if something awesome happened that ended up on youtube and someone or something dangerous saw it and decided to check out our awesome town. What if it's a new pack that wants to challenge our new Alpha because they _want_ the awesome town?" Stiles finishes his outburst, not bothering hiding his irritation at anyone criticizing his idea, before facing Scott and speaking softly. "You wouldn't want that would you Scott, my man?" Scott frowns. "Really not."

"See, the alpha has spoken." Stiles says, smiling at everyone in triumph.

Isaac snorts from where he was lying between Lydia and Scott. "You're just against it because you rarely get invited." 

Stiles squints at Isaac. "No less than you do. Besides, terrible stuff happens at parties. People get poisoned and birthday girls get kidnapped and sacrificed."

"People also have fun and hook up." Isaac says, shrugging and staring at the sky.

Lydia hums in agreement. "Maybe next time your hook up will kill you."

Isaac glares at Lydia before going back to staring at the sky.

"I know someone's hook up that tried to kill us." Scott says, snickering remembering the look of horror on Derek's face when he saw their English teacher's actual face. 

"She was kinda hot though." Isaac points out seriously.

"Yeah except you didn't see what she really looked like." Scott says, laughing at the thought that Derek made out with the Darach. "She looked so gross, like she didn't have lips and everything."

Allison grins at Derek's misery. Isaac frowns in concentration trying to imagine their English teacher without lips.

Stiles gasps. "Oh my God and she kissed my dad!" He whines in horror while Scott laughs louder and is joined by Allison. "Stiles, just be glad she didn't actually go for your dad." Stiles stares at Scott, a look of shock and pain on his face in response to the suggested thought. "Dude she totally cheated on Derek with your dad, you should be glad she wanted Derek more." Scott continues, his laughter dissolving into giggles.

Stiles looked absolutely disgusted at the thought of the Darach dating his dad. He imagined her around their house, and waking up in the morning and going downstairs to see the Darach sitting at their table eating breakfast. He imagined her helping him with his homework and making his dad smile, before killing them bloodily in their sleep. "Oh my God I think I'm gonna throw up." Lydia glares at Stiles, suddenly immensely glad that Scott and Isaac were between them. Scott smiles at Stiles. "Dude, she wanted your dad, not you." 

Stiles looks at Scott, mocking calmness. "Like how Peter wanted your mom, except this is worse because the thing dating Derek wanted to sacrifice my dad. Remind me to keep my dad away from anything dating Derek."

"Not everyone Derek dates is evil. Probably." Scott defends half-heartedly, still smiling at Stiles. 

Stiles waves a hand around, dismissing the thought. "Or he probably doesn't date much at all actually, that's probably why psychotic people target him and then use him to get an advantage killing people without him realizing it. Either that or he's just attracted to psychos in general. The guy should just stop dating for the sake of everyone in town."

Allison rolls her eyes in amusement. "You can't tell him to stop dating, Stiles." Isaac sneers. He'd love to see Stiles try.

"If it were that easy we could be using him as a threat alert. Every time he dates someone we can assume we're in trouble." Lydia says nonchalantly.

Stiles stares at her. "Lydia Martin you are amazing. You are going to rule the world one day." Lydia narrows her eyes at him, opening her mouth to speak when Stiles suddenly turns to face her fully, interrupting her. "I know what you're thinking, but I swear to God I wasn't joking -please don't be offended. There is a very high chance of anyone Derek dates trying to kill people. And I really don't see many people daring to Derek to date in general around town - remember that he was a murder suspect twice, so all the more reason for us to be suspicious." Stiles ends loudly with conviction before mumbling in chagrin, "I don't get why we never suspected Jennifer."

Scott cackles. "Remember we were the only reasons he was a suspect both times."

"So we should keep an eye on anyone new in town hitting on Derek."

Scott frowns. "Stiles you can't be serious."

"No no no, just listen to me, next time Derek dates someone we just throw mountain ash, wolfs bane and mistletoe at her, or - or we could just keep an eye on her if she's like Kate - and this doesn't count as stalking because we're doing this for the whole of Beacon Hills' safety -and then we can just deal with her as soon as possible and not wait till someone's somewhere tied to something!"

The look of betrayal in Scott face didn't do a thing in stopping Stiles smiling excitedly. Scott was going to fail his first self appointed mission as an alpha and it was going to be Stiles' fault.

"Yeah, except for the fact that Derek wasn't dating anyone when Jackson was the kanima." Isaac points out distractedly, not breaking off his staring contest with the sky.

"That's because he was busy training his new pu- pack and embracing his responsibilities and privileges as the alpha of the town, now he's not an alpha and there's no obvious new threat in town so he has all the time in the world to date. I think we should start right away, someone please tell me you know where he is." Stiles finishes hastily and slides down the smooth rock surface in the clearing they all occupied.

"Did you expect any of us keeping tabs on Derek?" Allison says, shaking her head in disbelief at Stiles giving everyone an expectant look while brushing moss off his back in stilted movements. 

"Someone could just call him." Isaac suggests slowly.

"I don't think you'd want him knowing. Try calling Cora." Allison counters while Stiles nods enthusiastically in agreement.

Scott looks at Stiles with disbelief. "Stiles I am not wasting my time keeping tabs on whether Derek is dating! Stop acting like you're serious!"

Lydia hops down to stand beside Stiles. "We don't have to. Cora will tell us." Scott stares at Lydia in bewilderment. "Lydia you can't be seriously agreeing with Stiles!"

Lydia crosses her arms and smiles harshly at Scott. "Derek's last girlfriend tried strangling me to death, with a wire. People were being sacrificed and alphas were messing around town and he still made time for a relationship with a psycho.”

Stiles takes a few steps behind Lydia and throws his hands up in silent victory. 

Allison looks between Lydia and Scott with a contemplative look on her face. "It wouldn't hurt. It's not like we have anything else to do. Maybe we'll even get better at being sneaky with all the practice."

"Yeah, as if there's going to be a whole lot of suspicious people lining up to date Derek all of a sudden." Isaac says, standing up and stretching lazily.

Scott stares at the sky in horror. "I hope not.”

~o~

Scott was screaming shrilly in terror. He had no doubt that every other werewolf in town -hopefully that constituted of only Isaac, Derek, Cora and Peter, because he really wasn’t ready to deal with a new pack- could hear him from wherever they were. He was a werewolf and a true alpha, and if he were dealing with a hunter or the supernatural he would stop running and turn around to face the thing chasing him head on. But the thing chasing him was a really angry girl howling in blind rage with a shotgun so he was doing nothing but running in terror screaming.

He thought it unfair that she was focusing all her rage on him, Stiles was the one that threw mistletoe in her face and Allison was the one snooping around her new home. Lydia was the one sharply condemning her outfit in front of Derek in line at the otherwise empty grocery store counter with just a clerk ogling at the girl(he agreed with Isaac that she was pretty hot) while Isaac was the one laughing silently and going through her purse without anyone but Scott noticing (Scott didn’t understand how he pulled that one off). Derek was the one watching everything silently with an eyebrow tilted upward.

Like, Derek didn’t even tell Lydia and Isaac off. Scott was being nice when he said he thought the strips in her dress made her look slim. Scott was the one handing her something to wipe the mistletoe off her face with and apologizing on behalf of Stiles while Stiles ran away flailing. Scott was the one apologizing to her for Allison and offering to help her put everything back in the shelves housing her recently deceased father’s antique gun collection and gently speaking his thoughts about how he thought her dad probably would’ve been happy at her for moving his collection in with her while Allison smiled gratefully at him and climbed out the window behind her back. He even welcomed her to town cheerfully.

Scott wasn’t even sure she actually ever did give Derek her number or if it was Cora and Peter messing with them.

Later Lydia tells him how the girl just wanted Derek’s loft while Cora swears that she didn’t just want his loft but was checking him out and looking at her boots weird and got along swimmingly with Peter. Also wasn’t it suspicious how she just happened to come across Derek’s loft and actually wanted the creepy thing?

“It’s suspicious because we don’t know how she came across it!” Scott shrieks at everyone gathered around his living room. His voice was hoarse from all the shouting he was doing today. “She probably saw it from outside and thought it looked big enough to look spacious even with her dad’s gun collection on display properly while she was driving through town to distract herself from her father’s death!”

Allison frowns at him in confusion while Cora looks at him with suspicion. “How do you know she was driving thro-“

“Because she said she’d just realized her dad was never coming back thanks to me and then went through every single moment of her life since the day her dad died while I was hanging upside down from one of your,” Scott jabbed a finger in Allison’s direction, his voice sounding increasingly strangled, “dad’s traps in the woods and I couldn’t get away because no one’s supposed to know I’m a werewolf and _I didn’t know how to get her to shut up and not shoot me at the same time_!” Scott ends in a forced scream and started breathing noisily while Isaac silently edges away from him and Stiles gingerly offers him a glass of water.

Lydia purses her lips. “She got along with Peter. I think it was worth it.”

“And she had a gun collection that she knew how to use.” Stiles pointed out, wiggling his eyebrows at Scott. Scott chooses to ignore everyone and concentrates on drinking.

Isaac nods in agreement. “All those bottled up feelings can’t be good. She could’ve gone on a murdering spree. At least she had someone to talk to and people know about her guns now, maybe she’ll take that into consideration and won’t do anything.”

Allison smiles at Scott. “Thanks to you she has a familiar face in town now so she’s less lonely too!” Scott wipes a hand across his face tiredly. “Yeah, you’re doing a much better job as an alpha of Beacon Hills than Derek and Peter combined!” Stiles thumps him on the back enthusiastically while Cora narrows her eyes at him and clenches her hands into fists. Isaac clears his throat loudly.

Allison points out how it was late and they should all go home before Scott’s mom arrives. She offers Cora a ride with her and Lydia and thinks Stiles should be thankful to her now that he doesn’t have to worry about Cora ripping his throat off with her teeth while he drives her home. Scott walks up the stairs slowly like he was already asleep and dreaming. He doesn’t acknowledge any of them leaving. Allison thinks it rude.


	2. Chapter 2

"You two, is there something going on?" Melissa asks Scott and Isaac from where she leaned against the door to Scott's room with her arms crossed, a worried look on her face. "And don't bother lying, you know I'll notice if anything weird happens around town this time." She gazes at them steadily, throwing a hand up impatiently when they kept gesturing not so subtly at each other inquiringly for too long. 

Eventually Scott speaks, looking at her with confusion. "Why do you think there's something wrong?"

"Because Stiles came to the hospital during my shift and asked about the new deputy Derek came in with. Is she like your previous English teacher?" She watches them warily, trying to gauge their reactions. 

"New deputy and Derek, why did Stiles know where the new deputy and Derek were?" Isaac asks carefully.

"That's what I wanted to ask, but Lydia was with him so I didn't think he was in danger of getting  _another_  restraining order." She glares at Scott while he spluttered in protest. “But mom, we had a reason for kidnapping Jackson! He knew why but he was still being a dick!” Melissa raises her eyebrows at the last word, giving Scott a severe look before offering a hand gesturing him to forgo it for now.

“So what did Stiles ask? What did you tell him?” Isaac prompts her.

“He wanted to know everything they did after coming in. I told him the deputy was unconscious when they arrived and Derek left right after dropping her off. Then they called Cora and left. Derek was involved so is something going on?” The expression on her face goes back to one of worry as she reaches the end.

Scott frowns. “No, we didn’t hear anything. Why did he drop her off at the hospital?”

“She was injured. Gunshot wounds to the left shoulder and arm. Her partner was fine, according to Derek. Apparently he was driving to a friend’s house when he saw her having a gun off with another guy.” The look on her face indicated that she didn’t believe a word Derek had said.

Scott pushes the sheets of paper littering his bed out of the way as he reaches for his cell phone, Isaac picking them up and attempting to organize them while Scott thumbs through his contacts.

“What’s all this?” Melissa asks, staring at all the paper gathered in Isaac’s arms.

“They’re translations of a book written in archaic Latin…” Isaac says, trailing off at the sound of a cell phone going off right outside Scott’s window which draws everyone’s attention. A hand appears, followed by Stiles’ face screwed up in effort as he hauls his body into Scott’s room. The sound cuts off when Scott ends the call. Isaac looks at Stiles in alarm and Melissa sighs resignedly. Stiles startles in noticing Melissa.

“Oh- Hey Melissa! I, uh, didn’t want to disturb you! Thought I’d just…climb in…. You know, you wouldn’t have to get the door, or a bat…sorry about your bat, by the way, I just realized I didn’t return it… not that I can. It’s kind of… destroyed.” Stiles makes a few soft noises at the back of his throat, looking at everyone in the room. Scott pulls his eyebrows up and together, giving Stiles an amused smile which makes Stiles glare at him and raise his shoulders defensively in question. Scott bets Stiles was regretting not using the door. He was probably trying to improve his skills for sneaking around.

“Just warn me if possible when something’s happening.” Melissa tells Scott tiredly before walking away.

“Don’t worry mom, I will!” Scott calls after her before snapping his attention to Stiles. “Stiles, what’s up?”

Stiles sniggers at his choice of words. “I’ll tell you what’s up, Derek’s di-“

“Stiles!”

“Oh my God, what are you, a monk now –“

“Stiles, you scared the hell out of my mom! What the hell were you doing at the hospital, why didn’t you call me?”

“We were trying to figure out if it was a false alarm! Which I am about to tell you all about!”

“So basically you wasted the whole day after school?”

Stiles huffs at Scott in disbelief and lifts a hand in Isaac’s direction. “How do you stand this guy?” Isaac’s eyebrows shoot up. “Says the guy with a restraining order climbing through people’s windows.”

“I climb through my _best friend’s_ window. You got a problem?” Stiles levels Isaac with a cold look.

“Stiles, what did you do after school?” Scott pulls Stiles up by the arm and towards the bed. Stiles falls into it, crossing his legs and sitting up. “I was driving to your house and there was a crime scene on the way. Shots were fired, like with guns, did you guys hear anything?”

“No, I wasn’t paying attention.” Scott says, frowning. “Did you hear anything?” He asks Isaac.

“No, I wasn’t listening for anything either.” Isaac shrugs at Scott.

Scott turns back to Stiles. “Did you drive to the hospital after that?”

“No, not immediately. Lydia was walking around the crime scene looking really nervous so I picked her up. I mean, she called Allison to pick her up but basically wanted to just get the hell out of there. There was a dead body there by the way, but they moved it before I got there. And then Cora called saying Derek smelled like blood and the hospital, so we went there and talked to your mom. I mean, it’s weird that Derek was there, right, unless he’s trying to be a vigilante now. Anyways, there’s this new deputy and she got shot and Derek was there and took her to the hospital and then left her there. Lydia said I was making too big a deal out of it because she didn’t actually come across the body like she usually does, her car broke down in that same street and she only saw the body after following the police cars and ambulance. Allison joined us after that, she thought it was weird for Derek to be there too, I mean he said he was going to a friend’s house and no one I talked to believes he even has a friend.” Stiles scrunches his nose up. “Man, big guy’s life’s pretty sad; I’m starting to feel really bad for him.”

Isaac nods solemnly. “I’ll convey your heartfelt musings to him.” Stiles exaggerates laughing mockingly at Isaac to hide his alarm at the words. “Very funny, try not to let the big bad wolf scare anything out of you.”

Scott whines in frustration. “Stiles, what happened after Allison joined you?”

“Allison drove Lydia home and I drove here.”

Scott looks at Stiles for a beat. “That’s it? But my mom got here before you did.”

Stiles gives Scott an unimpressed look. “Dude, I was hungry! And besides, who else is going to do my homework?”

“Wait, what homework?” Scott panics.

Stiles bumps shoulders with him, smiling lazily. “Relax, it’s due next week. Have I mentioned how much I love our new History teacher? Pity she’s just a temporary replacement. Anyways, I just wanted to get it over with in case something potentially life threatening demanded my time.”

Scott rolls his eyes, falling backwards into his bed with his arms spreads. Isaac speaks up. “So are we going to just ignore the fact that Stiles used your window?”

“Relax Isaac, Stiles doesn’t use just anyone’s window.” Scott mumbles from his bed. Stiles gives Isaac a smug look.

Isaac throws the pages back onto the bed, Stiles picking them up immediately, going through them curiously. Scott lets his eye slip close, eyebrows crinkled slightly in tension. Isaac starts humming a tune, the sound and that of pages moving against pages being the only noises in the room.

Stiles is never shy of telling Scott his thoughts. No one had figured out the extent of Lydia’s abilities from what she updates them on yet, but they always hear when something happens. Allison’s family had a bestiary and extensive knowledge about the supernatural collected over generations, which she had no qualms about sharing with them, not anymore. If something was happening, Scott trusted them on telling him. He considered all of them to be like him, starting off as ordinary teenagers, one by one getting dragged into a world they had no evidence to suspect of existing previously, they were all far past the stage of keeping each other in the dark with the intent to protect.

Except for Derek.

Who wasn’t a teenager.

And has been a werewolf for his entire life.

And started off with not telling Scott and Stiles anything even when they were helping him.

“Where the hell was Derek going anyways?” Scott asks, going for casual.

“I don’t know, I made a list of what I think, do you want me to recite or write it down?” Stiles grumbles, not looking up from the pages.

“Think about Derek a lot?” Isaac smirks at Stiles. “Climb in through his window in the middle of the night?” Stiles gives Isaac a blank look. “Didn’t you hear what Scott said? Do you need a scarf to give you a confidence boost in your hearing; it looks like I’ve finally figured their actual purpose out.” Isaac snorts amusedly. “I think I interpreted what he said appropriately, that’s why I asked.”

“Guys, seriously, what the hell was Derek doing there? And be honest, no one buys him driving to a friend’s house.” Scott sits up, leaning up against his elbows, looking at Isaac. “Remember how Derek first met Miss Blake? He literally swooped in and saved her single handedly from two rouge werewolves, and he just saved the new deputy.” Scott was not looking forward to his mom getting kidnapped again. Neither did he want to make a complete ass out of himself by almost lighting himself up like a freaking Fourth of July firework out of guilt for getting Derek killed while Derek has a really good time with his new psychotic girlfriend. Like, it must have been really good because Derek didn’t even bother to call to inform any of them about his very much alive state. That did not make Scott happy because he wasn’t having a really good time.

Stiles thought that Derek was just mad at them for not mourning him enough to pass up on the trip to the lacrosse meet.

“Maybe he came across her by coincidence. My dad would’ve told us if something weird was up with the crime scene and it really did look like an ordinary crime scene, I saw it, remember? I asked your mom and she would’ve said something too if Bale’s wounds looked weird. And Derek didn’t save her, she still got shot.”

“What if it wasn’t just a coincidence? What if he was there because something is actually happening?”

“Then Derek would inform us.” Isaac tries reassuring Scott.

Scott didn’t feel very reassured.

“He didn’t inform me when the alpha pack arrived.” Scott says, getting up and searching under his bed. “It wouldn’t hurt asking the sheriff about her. Then maybe we can get Derek to tell us what he was actually doing there.”

Stiles puts the pages down. “Yeah, can we do this without Derek actually noticing?”

“We’ll talk to him if we have to.” Scott declares over his shoulder, wrestling the shoe on. Scott could do this, he was an alpha now. He could start the conversation with ‘It was Stiles’ idea and Stiles once told me that I should always listen to him’.

“And I’m sure he’d dance and cheer us on waving pom-poms when he hears we’re keeping an eye on him. Hey, maybe he’ll buy me a car on finding this all started as my idea, I can’t wait! Not to mention how ecstatic he’ll be at how much we trust him.”

Well, Stiles should’ve thought of that before. Scott could just pass it off as ‘well, Stiles is like my bf and all and I kind of owe him for almost killing him multiple times before he figured out Allison was my anchor’. Besides, Derek already hates Stiles anyways.

“We do trust him, just not his…” Scott trails off frowning, searching for the other shoe.

“Dick?” Stiles suggests cheerfully, picking the shoe up and tossing it in front of Scott.

“I was going to say ‘basis of choosing people to trust’.” Scott complains, wrestling the other shoe on.

“Do you think about Derek’s dick a lot?” Isaac asks Stiles quietly, looking genuinely concerned and throwing Stiles for a loop. Scott cuts any conversation starting short, he was not listening to them talk about Derek’s dick. Just, _no_. “Stiles, will you drive us?”

“Sure.”

“I don’t think I should go to the station.” Isaac confesses.

“You’re not a fugitive anymore.” Scott tells him.

“Hey, where did you get these, can I borrow them?” Stiles asks, waving the pages around.

Scott grabs his jacket and cell phone. “Lydia translated them. I was supposed to get everyone copies, so you’ll get yours soon. Now come on!”

~o~

“Heyyy…..Derek.” Stiles pipes up when the quiet drags on to uncomfortable levels. Scott, Stiles and Isaac were heading for Stiles’ jeep when Derek’s car pulled up right beside it, Derek climbing out and pausing at the look of dread on all three of their faces.

“Stiles.” Derek says warily, “Scott. Isaac.” He continues, looking slightly unsure.

Isaac stares at Scott, willing him to do something. Stiles keeps glancing constantly from Scott to Derek. Scott tries to smile amiably at Derek, the smile coming off as more of lips mashed into a stretched thin line.

“Is everything okay?” Derek asks, looking at all three of them.

Scott looks casually back at Stiles and Isaac. He knew better than to try lying, and he couldn’t think of something immediately. “We could ask the same to you! Now’s not exactly the time to visit people, especially you doing it this late unless something’s wrong- not that you’re not welcome to visit, you are totally welcome to visit.” Stiles glances at Scott, licking his lips nervously before continuing when Scott doesn’t come up with anything. “You want to come in?”

Derek curves his eyebrows incredulously. “You’re inviting people to other people’s houses without asking the people who actually own the house?”

Stiles scowls at him in irritation. “Fine then, stand out here basking in the moonlight!”

Derek shrugs easily, stuffing his hands in his jeans pockets. “Fine then, bask in the moonlight with me while you answer my questions.”

Derek tilts his eyebrows up coolly when Stiles stares at him vacantly with his mouth open. Stiles eventually turns his head slowly to look at Scott and then Isaac. Scott jerks his head shortly once, his eyes pleading and jaw clenched hard as he tries to stress on Stiles being nice, Stiles giving him a reprimanding look as if he never would've thought of anything besides being nice. Scott wasn’t so sure given the cutting remarks he had recently seen Stiles capable of making readily when it came to Derek. Isaac widens his eyes subtly in warning to not give anything away. When Stiles looks back at Derek he was staring at them expectantly, not giving away any signs indicating he had caught the looks the three shared.

“Uhh….yeah, so…. Scott and I’ll just –we’re going somewhere, so…..Isaac’s here, he isn’t going.” Isaac turns his head away and rubs a hand across his neck to hide his grimace.

“You’re going out now? Don’t you have school tomorrow?” Derek asks, making a show of checking the time on his watch.

“You don’t have to remind us, we know, we’ve got everything covered.” Scott states defensively.

“So we’re going to visit the Sheriff now.” Isaac tries.

“Yeah, me and Scott are, not Isaac, Isaac was a fugitive once so the place scares him.” Stiles pushes Scott towards the jeep, keeping his eyes away from Derek. Scott looks at Stiles edgily, Stiles reassuring him by a nod of his head.

“Why the Sheriff?” Derek asks curiously, strolling towards the front of his car to keep them in sight. Stiles hums thoughtfully, fumbling with his keys before finding the one to his jeep.

“Because I want to bond with my dad who recently found out about the world of werewolves over curly fries.” Stiles tugs the door open, sliding in and starting the jeep, waiting till Scott got in to search out Derek’s eyes. “Scott’s going for the free food. I’d invite you too but you were a fugitive twice.”

Derek leans against his car, staring Stiles down. “You don’t have to think up excuses to not invite me, Stiles, they _almost_ sound like you’re trying to avoid me.” Derek says faking surprise like he had just had a revelation and beams when Stiles hits the brakes too hard right after accelerating high in an attempt to drive off fast, Scott hitting his head hard against the glass and howling in pain while Stiles cursed. “It’s not like that’ll make me even more suspicious about what I clearly want to know and you clearly want to hide.” Derek calls at them pleasantly. Stiles gives him a glare before driving away with more care, Scott rubbing his head looking thoroughly dismayed.

~o~

Derek watches them drive away for a moment with a satisfied smirk playing on his lips before straightening up and turning around to face Isaac.

“Not to disappoint you, but,” Isaac lifts his hands up defensively to stress his words, “I only recently found out Stiles has a restraining order and climbs through people’s windows, I might not be the best person to check with on Stiles’ secrets.”

Stiles had left him here all alone to deal with Derek. Stiles had left him here all alone to deal with Derek while he _drove away with Scott to_ _eat_. Stiles deserved zero gestures of friendly nature from Isaac. Isaac was being extremely generous labeling Stiles as an acquaintance. Isaac was going to make Stiles regret leaving him all alone to deal with Derek.

Going by how bothered Derek looked Isaac wagered he was succeeding.

~o~

“Was that really a good idea, leaving Isaac alone to deal with Derek?” Scott asks with a pained look on his face.

“What else was I supposed to do? We can’t _all_ avoid him after he drove all the way here, it might hurt his feelings. Isaac is the least in danger of being brutally clawed to death since he was Derek’s pack. And I thought you wanted Derek to trust you enough to inform you about any threats? That’s what I gathered from the conversation before Derek showed up.” Stiles tries convincing him. Scott didn’t feel too compelled to ask what Derek’s feelings out of all things had to do with the trusting in this situation. Never mind the fact that he isn’t sure if Derek still thinks of them as incapable teenagers and would have no second guesses about keeping them in the dark in spite of how much trust there was. If he did want to inform them anything he could’ve just called instead of driving all the way over to his house to talk to them face to face.

“Yeah, but what if he figured out we were keeping an eye on him?”

“Scott, we didn’t do anything that could make him suspect us.” Stiles states firmly.

“I guess so……but then what did he want to ask?” Scott muses out loud. Stiles groans and actually jumps up and down in his seat like a toddler throwing a tantrum.

“Oh my God, I don’t know! Text Isaac to tell you after Derek leaves!”

“Why are you so irritated? I’m the one with a huge ass bump on the head.”

Stiles scoffs at him. “Oh please, don’t kid yourself; I can see the thing’s already healed.”

“Still, why are you so jumpy?”

Stiles makes a few noncommittal noises at the back of his throat. “I don’t know, it’s probably just that I noticed Derek looking _straight at me_ every time he mentioned asking whatever the hell it is he wants to ask. I really hope he asks Isaac and doesn’t wait to ask me.”

“What if Isaac doesn’t have the answers?”

“Then I am going to stay at your house permanently and you are going to use your werewolfy senses to inform me every time Derek gets within a mile of your house so that I can drive off in the opposite directly.” Stiles announces.

“But we don’t have any more rooms. You wouldn’t mind sleeping on my floor, right?”

“I’ll sleep on the couch or share your bed. I am not taking the fall just because of a suggestion I made- a suggestion that you all turned into a plan of action. If he corners me I am selling all you guys out.”

“I’m still getting free food tonight right?”

“Of course. I did mention I was getting everything vegetarian for my dad right?” Scott looks at Stiles in shock before howling in agony.

“I should’ve stayed to deal with Derek.”

“You’re the one that wanted to go to the station in the first place, quit bitching.”

~o~

“Stiles climbs through windows?” Derek asks looking less bothered but increasingly flattered for some reason. Clearly Isaac was missing something because apparently informing fellow sane people about climbing through windows and restraining orders isn’t going to embarrass Stiles enough to have the impulse to punch Isaac and regret leaving him alone to deal with Derek.

Oh my God, what if they were getting Mexican?

“So, what did you want to ask?” Isaac offers to move past the thought of Scott eating Mexican for free with Stiles’ money (oh he would’ve made Stiles pay so much, so much- _it was an opportunity completely wasted on Scott_ ) tormenting him.

Derek looks skeptical. “Yeah, I’m not sure if you’d know…but do you know what Stiles did to Cora?”

Isaac looks at Derek in confusion. That was not what he was expecting. “You might have to specify.” Isaac says slowly.

Derek stands stock still in shock before gritting out menacingly, “You mean there’s been more than once occasion?”

Now Isaac was clearly missing something. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about, what the hell did Cora tell you?” Isaac demands, lifting his hands back up in defense and keeping his eyes fixed on Derek, looking for any alarming signs indicating he should run. He thinks about adding how he himself had barely interacted with Cora, but decides against it in case it draws attention to him away from what Derek seems furious about – which strangely appears to be _Stiles_.

Derek looks around as if seeking something, words probably, before glaring at Isaac, seeming to have made a decision. “Yesterday Stiles picked Cora up from the loft in his jeep.” Isaac did not like where this could be going, “When she came back it wasn’t Stiles dropping her off, it was Allison and Lydia.” Isaac did not think they were stupid enough to talk where Derek could hear, but in case he was about to be proven wrong he hoped Derek learned the whole thing was Stiles’ idea if it was the last thing Isaac said, “And Cora was not happy, she almost punched a _hole_ in the side of my loft,” Isaac swore to himself that Derek would learn of Cora being the one tackling her task of informing them all on Derek’s every move with more enthusiasm than all of them had with their tasks combines, “And today Cora called Stiles and they seemed to be having a _really_ important conversation,” Isaac was starting to think this was Cora’s plan all along to have Derek destroy them all and to leave the Hales the last ones standing to rule, “so tell me right now what the hell you know that Stiles did to her on their little date.” Isaac definitely did not see that coming.

“You think Stiles and Cora are dating?” Isaac asks with a wide smile that just wouldn’t go away. Derek was hilarious.

Derek, on the other hand, was looking deadly serious.

“They are not dating.” Isaac tells Derek, emphasizing each word by announcing them slowly and firmly.

Derek rolls his eyes. “Never mind, I’ll ask Stiles.” Isaac was starting to feel irritated. The situation was absolutely ridiculous.

“He’ll laugh in your face.” Isaac braves.

Derek looks annoyed. “I’ll know the truth at least.”

“Cora wasn’t alone with Stiles, she was with all of us. Trust me when I say Stiles and Cora are really not dating.” Isaac tries again with a grimace. They already had enough to deal with, and an awkward misunderstanding like that involving Derek on top of keeping an eye on Derek’s dates was bound to spiral into something disastrous. They sooner they dealt with this, the better for all of them. Isaac was awesome, everyone should be so thankful to him.

“What was she doing with all of you?” Derek asks dubiously. Isaac shoves the irritation as far away as he could. He was not going to give anyone the joy of blaming him when Derek tries ripping them to shreds.

“She was hanging out with us.”

“After her date with Stiles?” Derek presses. Isaac thinks about joking that Derek sounds like he wants them to date and fall in love and get married and have Stilinski-Hale babies but decides against it even though he thinks it sounds pretty clever in his head. Stilinski-Hale babies, Isaac shudders at the thought.

“Stiles is not interested in her like that.” Isaac says forcing patience. He could understand why Derek was so concerned, he really could. Derek had no idea his younger sister was alive till just a few weeks ago. No doubt they missed out on a huge part of each other’s lives. Derek worried about Cora and had no idea how to deal with it, so instead of talking to Cora he drove all the way out here to talk to Stiles. And Stiles had left Isaac to deal with it while he drove away with Scott to eat.

Isaac wonders why he is standing here dealing with Derek just because Stiles left him to like a tool. Acquaintances do not meddle into each other’s problems like this.

“He’s far more into to you than Cora.” Derek was giving Isaac his best ‘you’re kidding me, that’s the best you can come up with?’ face. “It seems to me like he thinks about you a lot. Of course, that’s just my opinion,” Isaac continues without waiting a beat, bringing his nails in front of his face to inspect them and keep Derek in his field of vision but out of focus, “going by how he acts around you and talks about you.” Isaac thinks about mentioning how Stiles brought up Derek’s dick twice but decides he isn’t that cruel.

“You think Stiles –the Stiles that told Allison to shoot me on the _head_ with an arrow because we went after Lydia thinking she’s the kanima–is….” Derek doesn’t finish the sentence in words, instead ends it with giving Isaac a flat look.

“Well, obviously he’s loyal to his pack.” Isaac states. “If Stiles was the type to throw his pack under the bus for a crush Scott wouldn’t be alive.” Isaac says truthfully. He would be lying if he said Stiles’ loyalty to Scott didn’t impress him a little.

“Yeah.” Derek deadpans sharply in agreement.

Isaac realizes Derek doesn’t believe the other thing he mentioned about Stiles even remotely when he rolls his eyes and turns towards his car.

“I’m not lying.” It comes out sounding reproachful.

Derek turns around and tells him, “Yes, Isaac, I can tell you’re not lying,” before turning towards his car again. Isaac doesn’t miss the second eye roll.

Isaac thinks about Stiles mentioning Derek’s dick again but feels he’s moving away from being irritated at Stiles to being irritated at Derek for looking like he was indulging a dumb kid.

“Looks to me like it slipped by your notice then. “ Isaac presses with glee. Derek turns slowly with his mouth pressed in a thin line and nose flaring.

“You probably didn’t notice because everything else overshadowed the signs.” Isaac offers quickly.

Derek looks at the sky shaking his head in disbelief.

“I don’t think anyone would take too well to a strange werewolf posing a threat to people that makes up their whole world.” Isaac points out. Derek narrows his eyes with a thoughtful look on his face. Isaac takes it as a sign of Derek recognizing his logic because it wasn’t a glare. “Not to mention the fact that all the dangerous situations we find ourselves in pretty much changes your priorities. It doesn’t look to me like he dislikes you anymore.”

Derek looks confused, like he doesn’t know what to think of that. Eventually he admits defeat faced with Isaac’s amazing people observation skills and manages, “It’s nothing serious. He isn’t acting on it.”

“It’s probably because you terrify him a lot.” Isaac suggests.

Derek hesitates before shaking his head in disagreement. “No Stiles never lets fear stop him.” Derek informs him sounding sure.

That surprised Isaac, because it could be taken as a compliment. Derek didn’t even sound resentful or anything when he said it. He just said it like it was something to be taken for granted and isn’t making Isaac reassess every memory of Derek and Stiles interacting.

“Then probably because he thinks he has stands a better chance with Lydia than with you.”

Derek levels him with a bemused frown.

Isaac shrugs. “Well, Lydia obviously likes guys.” Derek looks reluctant but eventually nods his head to admit Isaac had a point. Of course Isaac is right.

Derek sighs, his eyes glossing over. He was standing incredibly still except for swaying slightly on the spot with his hands still tucked inside his jeans pockets, eyes focused somewhere along the tops of the trees surrounding them. It was a warm night, a slight breeze brushing over everything in its path. It was also at least a week days away from a full moon. The sky was cloudless and the moon was large enough that the pale light made everything distinguishable. Isaac didn’t need to use his eyes as a wolf to see anything. He wonders what the pensive look on Derek’s face means he is thinking.

Isaac wonders if Derek is thinking about Stiles.

He didn’t think Derek and Stiles were close enough for the knowledge of Stiles’ attraction to Derek to have an impact on their interactions. He didn’t know if Derek was thinking of rejecting Stiles completely without Stiles having even made a move or intending to and humiliating him immensely as a result. He didn’t think Derek would take it too seriously, but Derek had gone quiet all of a sudden, and was possibly thinking over what Isaac had pointed out. Isaac feels a pang of regret.

Derek’s eyes come back to focus and he shifts them towards the ground, letting them slip close as he takes a deep breath, before looking up at Isaac.

“Never mention your observation on Stiles to anyone.” Derek warns before driving off.

Isaac decides to call Allison.

~o~

“The lack of edible things in your house is depressing.” Lydia says while going through every cabinet in the kitchen.

“They’re not lacking if they have things in them.” Allison says before carefully lifting the cookie out of the glass of milk she was sporting and stuffing it in her mouth before it crumbles.

“There’s no point if the things in them don’t look delicious.” Lydia says before leaning again the kitchen counter with a sigh, picking the apple she’d found earlier off the counter and sinking her teeth into it like she had no choice.

“This doesn’t look delicious to you?” Allison asks lifting another cookie before carefully dunking it into the milk. “Don’t tell me you’re seeing a face covered in worms instead of a perfectly ordinary and _delicious chocolate chip cookie_.” Allison croons as lifts the subject of her craving and doves forward to catch it with her mouth before it crumples.

Lydia gives her a mutinous look. “They look ancient.” She snaps.

Allison chokes a little before swallowing forcefully. “I checked the dates last Saturday, none of them had expired yet!”

Lydia stares at her before hissing, “Today is Monday. They could be expired _right now_.”

Allison can’t stop the smile spreading across her face in response to the fuss Lydia was making. “You’re immune, what do you have to worry about?”

“I am immune to werewolf bites and kanima poison, I am not experimenting to find if the same applies to the deadly moulds you’re cultivating.” Lydia tells her before taking another bite off the apple just as Chris drifts into the kitchen in his pajamas and squints as his eyes adjust to the bright lights.

“Dad we’re out of cookies.” Allison says as she dips a cookie into the glass.

Chris frowns at her while the mug he had held under the tap fills with water. “Those look like cookies.” He eyes the packet sitting beside Allison’s elbow.

Allison crumbles the empty packet with one hand and lifts the glass to down the remaining milk with the other.

Chris grunts turning the tap off when the mug overflows. “We’re out of cookies.” He mutters before gulping down the contents of the mug and wondering off.

He wanders back moments later frowning at the mug in his hand and grumbles out, “Allison your cell phone’s ringing.”

Allison sprints to her room and snatches her phone up from the bed, frowning at the unfamiliar number displayed on the screen. She swipes a finger across the screen and brings the phone up to her ears. “Hello?”

“Allison?” Isaac sounds relieved.

Allison’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “Isaac?”

Allison wasn’t aware Isaac had a phone.

“Yeah, sorry for calling kinda late but I need to ask you something–are you good friends with Stiles?”

“Yes. Why what’s wrong, did something happen to him?” Allison couldn’t keep the panic off her voice.

“No, no, just – how good are we talking about?” Isaac sounded like he was trying to make up his mind about something.

“What do you mean?” Allison asks warily. Isaac’s questions sounded to her like he was trying to figure out how much Allison was willing to do for Stiles. Which made her think Stiles was in trouble again.

“Well, like, if you had to choose between Lydia and Stiles, would you choose Stiles?”

“No, I’d choose Lydia.” Now it sounded like Stiles had done something.

“….Okay, I should’ve seen that one coming. Scott and Stiles?”

"Stiles.”

“Me and Stiles?” Isaac sounds hopeful.

“Stiles.”

“…..That’s good to know.” Isaac mumbles sounding disappointed.

“Is there any point to all this unless something happened with Stiles?” Allison demands impatiently.

“Well, yes. Just don’t tell anyone else, okay?” Isaac asks nervously before pausing. Eventually he asks slowly. “You don’t want to kill Derek, do you?”

Allison sighs rubbing her head. “Isaac, tell me why you called or I’m hanging up and calling Stiles.”

“No, wait don’t hang up!” Isaac blurts out sounding panicked. “Derek thought Stiles broke Cora’s heart so I told Derek how Stiles likes Derek a lot and I think Derek took it more seriously than I was anticipating.”

Allison stays silent waiting for more. Isaac doesn’t say anything else.

“You told Derek that Stiles likes him and Derek believed you?” Allison asks skeptically.

“He could tell I wasn’t lying.”

“How do you know that?” Allison asks in confusion.

“Well, werewolves can hear your heart-“

“How do you know Stiles likes Derek?” Allison interrupts him. She didn’t think Stiles would tell Isaac of all people. Even she wasn’t aware till she caught Stiles staring at Derek’s back while he walked away with his eyes glazed over and mouth hanging open and letting out a breathy ‘holy God’ once after a meeting. Eventually when Derek was out of sight Stiles had noticed he wasn’t alone like he had thought and had made her swear to never tell a single soul of what she’d witnessed like it was a crime. Apparently Stiles thought it was a crime because of the several times Derek and Scott never agreed on things.

Also because ‘Allison, have you _seen_ the guy, it’s definitely a crime to be that hot, and he just freaking struts around with his shirts literally _painted_ over his-‘ Allison had stopped him there because she hated Derek too much to tolerate a single praise aimed at him.

“Well it seemed pretty obvious to me.” Isaac states confidently.

“So you told it to Derek?” Allison hisses in anger. Allison didn’t trust Derek with anything. She had no idea what Derek would do armed with that knowledge, in particular when he’d tried using Erica to get close to Scott.

“It was either that or Derek complicating things by interfering to protect his baby sister’s feelings.” Isaac says sounding defensive.

“It doesn’t matter now, what’s done is done. What did Derek say?”

“He told me not to tell anyone else about Stiles.”

Allison bits her lips, eyebrows furrowing. Either that meant Derek was going to ignore it or he didn’t want anyone knowing to call him out on it if he used it to his advantage.

Allison frowned. “Wait. Was there a specific reason for telling me?” Allison asks curiously.

“Well, yes, since you’re good friends with Stiles I was hoping you would keep an eye out for him in case Derek rejects him or something?” Isaac asks cagily sounding extremely guilty.

“Stiles isn’t planning on pursuing Derek.” Allison tells him with certainty.

“Well Derek looked like he was thinking seriously about _something_.” Isaac says with vigor.

“Shouldn’t you tell Scott?” Allison asks.

Isaac makes a noise of protest. “I’m not sure if he can be subtle about it.”

Allison imagines Scott coming to the same conclusions as her and crashing in through Derek’s door with flourish to tell him loudly and heroically to stay away from Stiles. She imagines Stiles never talking to Scott for embarrassing him and moping around at no longer getting to drool over Derek out of everyone’s notice.

“Good thinking.” Allison tells him. Isaac hangs up wishing her a good night after that. Allison scrolls through the numbers of missed calls from the number Isaac had used to call. There were 54.

~o~

Sheriff Stilinski stares at all the green leaves people insist on calling food Stiles had stuck under his nose with the corners of his mouth pulled down in displeasure.

Scott was munching on his leaves darkly. He stabs some more with his fork and puts them in his mouth, and goes back to stabbing at the rest.

Stilinski frowns at Stiles in question. Stiles mouths ‘Agent McCall’ with a grimace.

Stilinski mouths an ‘oh’ and catches sight of Agent McCall staring at the back of Scott’s head with his mouth pressed into a thin line from the window. Stilinski smiles and waves a fork speared through raw green leaves he can never bring himself to appreciate as food when McCall notices him. McCall nods at him in acknowledgement and walks off.

Stilinski eyes the curly fries and packets of what he hopes are burgers Stiles pulls out. He’s surprised to see Stiles putting leaves in front of himself.

“Son I don’t think you need to worry about dying of heart failure yet.” He tells Stiles and points at the leaves in front of him.

“Well, dear father of mine, I have decided to spare you from enduring _this_ ,” he raises the bowl of leaves, “torment all alone.” Stiles announces with pride at his thoughtfulness.

“It’s easier to endure when there’s something to look forward to.” Stilinski tells him. He mentally pats himself on the back for preserving his dignity in not sounding hopeful or staring forlornly at the curly fries.

“One of the burgers is yours. The curly fries are mine.”

“What sort of burger are we talking about?” Stilinski asks casually before putting some of the green leaves in his mouth.

“Beef.”

“I see.” Stilinski says calmly. A burger with meat and no curly fries are still better than no burger with meat and no curly fries.

Someone knocks on the door and Stilinski calls at them with permission to enter. Deputy Bale walks in with a few files and hands them to him. “Thank you, Bale.” Stilinski smiles at her. Stiles was staring at her wide eyed with his cheeks puffed out of being full of leaves and his fork sticking out of his mouth. Deputy Bale smiles endearingly and coos involuntarily on seeing Stiles while walking out. Stilinski expected no less, his son was pretty good looking. He didn’t understand why he didn’t have a girlfriend. It was probably all because his son was too busy running around with werewolves.

Stiles chews fast and swallows forcefully. “Well, dad, this has been very nice but we should get going. Scott?” Scott looks up from his bowl at Stiles in confusion.

“Deputy Bale just handed my dad some files.” Stiles tells Scott, putting emphasis on ‘Bale’. Scott’s eyebrows crinkle in concentration before his eyes widen and he whips his head around to look at Stilinski, nodding his head in agreement with Stiles.

“We should get going.” Scott tells Stilinski as he and Stiles dart out of their seats and skid to a halt in front of the door, both of them getting in each others way trying to pull it open when Stiles eventually backs away and Scott pulls it open, falling out. Stiles calls at Stilinski with, “Bye dad, finish the salad before touching the burger!” before letting the door swing close.

Stiles had left the curly fries behind. Sheriff Stilinski lets out a cheer.

~o~

“Wait!” Scott stops with his arms outstretched all of a sudden when they reach Stiles’ jeep outside. He steadies Stiles with he runs into one of Scott’s arms and flails trying to maintain his balance.

“It could just be the same name, right?” Scott asks Stiles with a frown.

Stiles bounds up and down in impatience. “Scott it has to be the same person because I asked your mom what Deputy Bale looks like and Deputy Bale looks like the Deputy Bale you just saw.”

“Like that Deputy Bale?” Scott asks.

“Yes, Scott, dark skin, curly brown hair, and hazel eyes just like Deputy Bale!” Stiles tells him impatiently while flailing his arms around in panic.

“But she has straight hair.” Scott says in confusion.

Stiles stares at him before bursting out, “She straightened her hair after her wounds magically healed!”

“Stiles, are you sure it’s the same person? I mean, you sure her eyes were hazel, you didn’t even see her at the hospital.” Scott tells him. Stiles starts replying with “Scott, Deputy Bale works with my dad, I can’t-” when Stiles’ cell phone rings and he pulls it out of his pocket to receive the call.

“Allison, Scott and I just saw Deputy Bale at the station and she looks perfectly fine and gorgeous.” Stiles blurts out before Allison could get a word out. Scott doesn’t hear anything from her side and thinks he’s not focusing his hearing enough when Allison yells, “What?”

“Yes, and she matches the description Melissa gave us and now we’re outside with my jeep and it looks like,” Stiles lowers voice and head all of a sudden, “she’s coming out and probably leaving on patrol.” Scott looks around and eventually sees her getting into a cruiser alone.

“I knew it! I bet you my car he’s hiding his new girlfriend from us.” Allison exclaims sounding awfully gleeful.

“I am not loosing my baby on a stupid bet – and he took Bale to the hospital, Derek’s not stupid enough to do that if he wanted to hide her from us.” Stiles whispers loudly.

“In case you haven’t noticed, Stiles, Derek isn’t exactly the brightest when he falls for a pretty face.” Allison tells him softly. Scott frowns, looking away from the direction the deputy had drove off to Stiles hunched against his jeep looking rueful.

“Yes, Allison, I have noticed that, thank you.” Stiles snaps sounding mildly irritated. “So, what now, are you going to check her house?” Stiles asks curiously.

“I was thinking of doing it tomorrow, actually.” Allison says sounding apologetic. “Lydia’s calling Cora to ask where Derek is.” She says after a moment.

Stiles turns towards Scott. “I guess we should just go home?” He asks.

Scott shrugs uncertainly. “I guess so.”

"Stiles, Derek isn’t home.” Scott hears Allison’s troubled voice from Stiles’ phone.

“Stiles, you go home.” Scott tells Stiles decisively. “I’ll follow her and call Isaac to back me up.” He briefly squeezes Stiles’ free arm and sprints off towards the road, before taking a turn and disappearing into the woods.

~o~

……What the hell is that ridiculous eye color, anyway? Amber? They look light brown most of the time. Sometimes when the light hits them right they look lighter colored, yellowish like a werewolf’s. No, no, not that yellowish. More like honey colored. Is honey even an eye color?

Derek glowers at the huge packet of black licorices he’s bought on impulse and stuffs three into his mouth to tear at them with his teeth, slumping lower into the seat of his car where he’d parked it in an alley near the animal clinic. Deaton wasn't here anyways and everywhere else remotely near civilization was too bright to suit his mood.

……Now that Derek thinks about it he always did go out of his way to try helping Derek as long as Derek was on their side, even if he didn’t need to.

Derek throws the packet containing the rest of the licorices on to the seat beside him and starts the car, revving it unnecessarily and taking comfort in the feel of the thrum of the machine, deciding to drive around town aimlessly till it was late enough that Peter would have left and Cora would be asleep. Then he could go back to the loft and sulk all alone without anyone interrupting him.

……… Maybe next time he should be nicer and try smiling at him or something? Or wait, would that be too abrupt a change of attitude? If he takes it as an ok sign to ask Derek out or something then things would get awkward -and there’s a chance he’ll loose the uncomplicated interactions they have completely. Derek doesn’t want that. Besides, it’s not like he can force himself to be nicer to him, that’d be pretending. Derek’s never pretended anything when it comes to him.

Derek wished the twins were still alphas and wanted to kill them all because that would be a much needed distraction as he pulls out of the alley slowly, everything eerily quiet around the clinic except for the sounds of the engine and tires crunching against lose pieces of gravel. You’d think animal clinics would be somewhere less shady.

……Did his cheekbones grow or did it look like it did because he grew his hair?

……Maybe he could get a better look next time.

……But he’d probably need a picture to compare since he didn’t exactly spend his time memorizing his cheekbones to be able to tell the difference.

Stupid Isaac noticing things and making Derek wonder non-stop about the freaking hyperactive, infuriating, rude, sarcastic, resolute, courageous, trustworthy, witty, smart, funny, and cute 17 year old that calls him sour wolf–

Derek glares murderously at the road in front of him.

~o~

“I thought you said you were going to do it _tomorrow_.” Lydia reminds Allison lightly.

“By the time tomorrow comes, there will be enough time for you to get strangled with a wire.” Allison excuses.

Lydia hums in understanding.

“What’s the real reason you’re making me drive us to Stiles’ house near midnight?” Lydia asks curiously.

Allison shrugs. “The more the merrier.”

Lydia hums louder. After a while she asks, “Why do you have a crossbow and that baton thing with enough voltage to subdue a werewolf?”

Allison pushes her bottom lip out in a pout and remains quiet.

After a while Lydia states, “We don’t need those to break into a house.”

Allison replies casually, “I know.”

Lydia hits the breaks forcefully making both of them bound forward at the change in momentum and turns to give Allison a calculating look. “Then what do we need them for?” She asks coolly.

“For Derek.” Allison replies shortly.

“For Derek.” Lydia repeats flatly.

Allison nods while running a hand through her hair. “Yeah, in case he catches us following him and we have to run.”

Lydia stares at her looking like she was suppressing a scream before snapping, “Allison, I am not stalking Derek Hale.”

“But I need you to drive away fast while I shoot!” Allison tells her.

“Then what the hell is Stiles going to be there for?” Lydia grits out.

“What’s the point in leaving him out?” Allison asks with a frown.

Lydia suppresses an eye roll before demanding, “Why can’t he drive instead of me?”

“I don’t know how well he drives! My dad is going to kill me should something happen to the car, if Derek doesn’t kill us first.” Allison tells her.

Lydia glares at her some more before finally pressing her foot against the accelerator.

~o~

“Has anybody noticed the flaw in this plan?” Stiles sticks his head out between them and questions from the backseat.

“What?” Lydia inquires.

“Like, I don’t know, maybe the fact that we have no idea where the hell Derek is.” Stiles snaps.

Lydia starts shaking her head and chanting ‘no’ when Allison pulls out one of the Argents’ high-tech dog whistles out of the duffel bag she’d stuffed under the space in front of her legs.

“Oh my God you didn’t think this through did you?” Stiles asks sounding panicked.

“I wasn’t going to use this.” Allison tells them with an eye roll before pushing it deeper into the bag and shifting some more things around before pulling out a laptop and passing it to a very confused looking Stiles.

Allison pulls out her cell phone next and activates the wifi before opening the most recent text Cora sent from Peter’s phone and handing it back to Stiles.

“That’s Cora’s username and password. She left her cell phone on Derek’s car.” Allison tells Stiles.

Stiles frowns looking extremely irritating before asking, “Is there any chance Peter might’ve suggested this idea?”

Allison looks back at him curiously on seeing his reaction. “I don’t know, why?”

“Just so you know he didn’t come up with it on his own.” Stiles mumbles darkly sounding like someone who felt like the world was never fair to them.

~o~

“She’s really hot.” Isaac comments from where he and Scott were crouched behind trees along the edge of the wood while gesturing towards Deputy Bale when she stops her cruiser and comes out of it to tell off the people parked on the side of the road.

“Hotter than Allison?” Scott asks him pointedly.

Isaac looks like a deer caught in headlight before saying, “They’re both just really hot.” It sounded more like a question, like he was guessing an answer to the teacher’s question and hoped it was correct.

Scott rolls his eyes and goes back to keeping an eye on the Deputy. He frowns.

“Is that…..Danny and Ethan in the car?” He asks in surprise.

Isaac squints before nodding in confirmation. “Looks like it.”

“But Danny would never break the law!”

“Ethan’s a bad influence.” Isaac says sounding pleased at the twins proving to be a menace. Scott wonders why.

Then he remembers Erica and Boyd.

“The Deputy’s leaving. Come on!” Scott urges Isaac.

~o~

“Are you sure that’s Derek’s car?” Lydia asks doubtfully as they drive by without stopping.

“It looks like it. Unless it’s the same color and model and Cora lost her cell phone somewhere around here.” Stiles says staring at the car through the back window.

“She probably lost her cell phone here.” Allison suggests slowly. That made more sense.

Because the other explanation for Derek parking outside a bookstore is that Derek actually reads books and went in to buy books. What sort of bookstore even stays open at midnight?

“He’s probably buying books for research.” Allison offers.

What if the bookstore belonged to a druid that catered to supernatural creatures?

The second time they drive by they see Derek coming out of the bookstore with his arms full of books stacked so high that all they could see were his eyebrows.

“I think we should be prepared to accept the fact that Derek might like reading.” Stiles comments in awe looking extremely impressed at Derek walking towards his car with no problems despite the books blocking his view.

Allison shakes her head in denial. “That doesn’t make any sense. He- He’s probably doing some serious research.” Derek lowers the books and places them on the ground before he opens up the trunk of his car to place the stacks inside with care.

“That’s a lot of newfound enthusiasm towards research.” Lydia comments on the view of Derek walking towards the front of his car in the rear view mirror.

“Oh my God, Lydia!” Stiles cries out.

“What?” Lydia asks innocently.

“Keep your eyes on the road!” Stiles shrieks at her urgently. Lydia rolls her eyes and shifts them towards the road. Allison notices Derek pause for a while before shaking his head and getting into the car.

Allison quickly reaches back and puts a hand over Stiles’ mouth, putting the index finger of the free hand over her own lips to gesture for him to stay quiet.

~o~

Derek was hearing voices in his head.

Not just any voices, but voices belonging to the reason he’d decided to spend the entire night reading till he fell asleep, and for some reason his conscience had decided to torture him by adding the voice of the girl the very reason previously had enough feelings for to tell Allison to shoot Derek on the head with arrows.

At least he could trust his conscience to reprimand him when it thinks he’s lusting after a teenager.

He refused to name said teenager because of the chain reaction it summoned that started with his heart feeling like it was shot through with wolfsbane.

That was probably his conscience telling him something too.

He’d bought every book he could find on supernatural creatures. He thought it’d be fun comparing them to what he knew and what Peter had saved on his laptop. Hopefully the books would contain enough ridiculous false information to entertain him immensely and sufficiently to put thoughts of Stiles out of his mind.

And there was that reaction again. He could hear Stiles’ voice too this time. Any moment now and he’d start thinking about how Stiles looked in plaid and wondering if it meant anything when he winked at him once ages ago.

~o~

“Can we talk now?” Stiles whispers.

Allison shakes her head frantically, glaring at Stiles for speaking.

Stiles screwed his face up in frustration before jabbing his fingers frantically on the keyboard. When he passes the laptop on to Allison she sees he had opened a word document and typed ‘You really think Derek’s paranoid enough to stay alert for catching us when he’s just casually driving around buying books all alone at midnight?’

Allison types ‘he’s always alert, I’m pretty sure I saw him react on hearing you yell at Lydia’ and passes it back to Stiles.

Stiles gives Allison a sheepish look before going back to typing a reply.

‘I panicked, ok! Maybe u should let me drive instead?’

Allison hesitates before typing out carefully, ‘My car is not exactly the same model as your Jeep you know.’

Stiles’ lips twitch into a smile on seeing the reply.

‘That’s nice, someone finally acknowledges that I alone get to call my Jeep a piece of crap outright.’

Allison can’t help the chuckles that escape her on reading it.

‘It’s not that bad. With the number or times it’s saved us I feel like it is a friend. Also, how are your feelings doing on finding Derek’s nerdy love of books?’

Stiles’ mouth drops open and a puff of breath rushes inside loudly in an offended gasp as he narrows his eyes at her for bringing his feelings into question. Allison gestures seriously for him to start typing with a questioning face.

‘I’ve only seen him reading books once, so idk, maybe u were rite and he bought them for research, what do u think?’

‘I thought maybe the owner of the bookstore is a druid and Derek needed books on how to deal with his new supernatural girlfriend’

‘Why would you think that???’

‘It was open at MIDNIGHT.’

‘Maybe it was 24 hour open café + bookstore?????’

‘But Derek went in there. AT MIDNIGHT.’

‘OMG what is wrong with you, are you freaking out more that your dad’s going to get sacrificed or that Derek bought books at midnight’

‘Both. Why can’t Derek wait till morning?’

‘Idk, he couldn’t sleep?’

‘That or he found out his date is psychotic and is trying to deal with it before we find out.’

‘Ok I didn’t think of that now ur freaking me out b/c she works with my dad’

Lydia smacks them both before Allison can start typing. Stiles mouths ‘ow’ with a scowl and rubs his face, glaring at Lydia. Allison mouths ‘what’ with irritation. Lydia jabs a finger towards where Derek had suddenly stopped his car. Derek steps out and slams the door shut with force before turning to stare straight at their car trailing towards his at a slowed pace with the flash of his blue eyes in wolf form visible from the respectable distance Lydia had opted to keep while driving behind him.

Then he drops on all fours and leaps towards them.

Stiles and Allison both yell Lydia’s name in panic when she slams her heel harder against the accelerator, which results in the car vaulting forward at a much faster speed than before towards the form of Derek now bounding towards them on all fours with his form visible from the moonlight but not distinguishable due to the flash of his limbs flexing fast, the splash of the bright blue of his eyes glowing dangerously.

“Lydia, turn around, turn around!” Allison shouts frantically.

“Lydia! Stop!” Stiles cries out, voice shaking in fright.

Lydia wasn’t listening as her eyes were trained on Derek, sharp in concentration. She wasn’t stopping.

Derek wasn’t stopping either.

“Lydia!” Allison and Stiles cry out almost simultaneously. Lydia screws her face in frustration and slams her heel against the breaks when Derek doesn’t dodge out of the way even when the light from their headlights blankets him completely, the tires screeching against the asphalt and the bumper close to Derek’s chest just as he brings his arms up to brace his hands against the hood of Allison’s car and uses it as leverage to leap up and over their car.

Allison, Lydia and Stiles twist their heads back but begin searching around them when they don’t see Derek landing anywhere behind them.

“What were you doing?!” Allison asks Lydia shakily.

“Normally when people see a car driving towards them they jump of the way and then lie down to revel in the fact that they live another day.” Lydia tells her breathlessly.

“I think the car got more scared than he did.” Stiles comments faintly.

“The car that Lydia is probably never driving again.” Allison says weakly.

“Oh, you wanted to get caught? Why didn’t you just say so?” Lydia snaps at both of them with a glower.

Allison huffs at her in frustration. She was pretty sure the frenzied driving to chase Derek out of the way gave them away loud and clear.

She doesn’t know the outcome of any werewolf versus car showdowns nor was she looking forward to any but Derek most likely thinks werewolf wins hands down.

Maybe they should just drive off fast right now and pretend they thought Derek was an unfamiliar werewolf if he brings it up.

“He didn’t even blink.” Stiles bursts out in a whimper.

“Stop sounding impressed.” Lydia tells him.

“I’m going to die of second-hand embarrassment in your behalf Lydia.” Stiles tells pityingly.

“I don’t think you can consider it second-hand when we were all in the car because that makes us a part of it.” Allison tells him quietly.

“Derek is never going to let us live this down.” Stiles whines.

Allison frowns and searches around them again carefully. She was pretty sure her car wasn’t painted with Derek.

“Where’s Derek, he jumped up, right?” Allison says.

“You know, maybe he jumped so high he landed on the moon.” Stiles muses.

“I’m not breaking that news to everyone.” Lydia says.

“You were the one driving.” Stiles insists.

“I didn’t tell him to go soaring in the air.” Lydia tells him.

“Do you think he landed in the woods and got seriously injured?” Stiles asks quietly.

“Maybe we should call Scott to look for him?” Lydia suggests.

“It can’t be possible to jump that high.” Allison says, unsure, as Stiles passes her cell phone on.

She doesn’t even get as far as unlocking it before chucking it aside to grab her crossbow, jostling the door open to throw herself out as Stiles lets out a terrified scream that felt like it was wrench mercilessly from somewhere deep inside him when a pair of arms toss the door to his right open and grab him, hauling him out in a flash with no warning.

“Don’t come out Lydia!” Allison shouts out a command when Lydia makes a move to follow her.

Lydia catches something in her tone that makes her decide against arguing.

It was probably the fury that felt like it could drive her enough to cut down Derek into a million pieces before frying the pieces and feeding them to sharks. Because the sound Stiles had made, _it hurt_ , she’d never heard him sound like that. Sure, they were following Derek, but Derek isn’t the one who has to deal with his only remaining parent being taken to be ritually sacrificed when his apparent not enemy’s magical girlfriend feels like it, he doesn’t get to pull stunts like that on them. What if Lydia had tried turning out of the way and crashed into a tree? What if their car flipped over instead of crashing into a tree and burst into flames? Stiles could start having a panic attack any minute now with how terrified he sounded what were they going to do then?

Allison could go on but the fury evaporates instantly as she gives the scene on top of her car a tedious look.

Derek looks like he has himself braced comfortably on his right leg bent under him with his right hand planted on the surface as he stares back at Allison.

Stiles looks like he’s having the time of his life because Derek had his left arm wrapped around his waist while Stiles was braced on his own knees against the surface, which resulted in Stiles being essentially plastered to Derek’s left with his arms wrapped around Derek’s shoulders.

Stiles tears his eyes away from Derek’s face slowly to look at Allison with his lips tucked inside like he was trying to restrain laughing. The look on his face was still one of hilarity though. Allison has to bring a hand up to hide her mouth but she was pretty sure they could still see her shoulders shaking.

Derek was still staring at Allison with his eyebrows raised in a ‘well then, what do you have to say for yourself?’ manner.

Allison has a hard time taking him seriously when he has Stiles plastered on one side. Stiles, who, is now stock still and staring at Derek’s shoulders in awe like they could give him superpowers. They’re just shoulders but clearly they impress Stiles a lot.

Eventually Stiles gets distracted from Derek’s shoulders because of the biceps of his arm around Stiles’ waist. The arm which looks like it’s slipped lower to his hip. Derek has a hand wrapped around what Allison assumes is Stiles’ hipbone now.

Stiles looks up from the hand slowly to Allison with panic in his eyes. Now he looks like he’s stopped breathing. No doubt he’s panicking about reacting somehow and Derek noticing. But Derek already knows, and Allison thinks they’re all pretending no one knows anything for the sake of maintaining balance in the universe.

Allison gives Stiles an apologetic look.

Stiles looks at her dejectedly.

Allison didn’t like feeling that she was letting Stiles down in his time of need.

“Derek, put Stiles down.” Allison tells Derek calmly.

“No.”

“No?” Stiles croaks out.

“Stiles is my hostage.” Derek tells them with a straight face.

“Stiles will make Derek regret his life decisions if he develops Stockholm syndrome.” Stiles warns.

“Stiles will not have time to develop Stockholm syndrome because he will starve to death when Derek forgets to feed him.” Derek tells him with relish.

“Derek doesn’t need to feed him because Stiles is not a pet.” Stiles informs him.

“Lydia is one second away from pressing ‘send’ on the text she just typed to report the sheriff on Derek Hale kidnapping his son so Derek should just tell us why he decided to hold Stiles ‘hostage’.” Lydia’s voice carries from where she was seated on the driver’s side with her cell phone in her hands and the windows rolled down.

“Derek will inform the sheriff on Allison, Lydia and Stiles stalking him with glee unless they tell him why he was being followed.”

Derek looks at Allison

Stiles looks at Allison.

Lydia looks at Allison.

Allison sighs in a long suffering manner. Well, she was the one that decided they should follow Derek in the first place.

“Just because we were driving in the same direction doesn’t mean we were following you Derek.” Allison tries to placating him.

“I was driving in the direction of my loft.” Derek drones.

“So were we.” Allison replies gamely.

“You –You were driving to _my_ loft?” Derek asks sounding unconvinced.

“Yes, to talk to Cora.” Lydia calls out making it sound like it was something that should be obvious.

“Cora talks with you?” Derek asks sounding surprised.

“What’s wrong with Cora having friends?” Lydia retorts.

“So you decided you need to talk to her at midnight?” Derek asks incredulously.

“She doesn’t have her cell phone on her.” Stiles interjects earnestly.

“Couldn’t you wait till morning?” Derek asks.

“What’s wrong with midnight?” Lydia asks in return.

“You’re supposed to be sleeping at midnight.” Derek asserts.

“You’re not sleeping.” Stiles points out.

“I don’t have school in the morning.” Derek tells him.

“Oh really, I almost thought you were going to join us there for a second with all the books you bought and everything.”

Derek’s eyes widen in horror, either at them catching Derek buying books or because Derek assumes they were following him from that way back. Or because Stiles just let it slip out that he assumes Derek never finished high school.

“Don’t make that face, reading books isn’t something to be ashamed of, it won’t reduce your cool factor.” Stiles tells him with a light pat on his pecs. Stiles doesn’t hide the surprised wonder directed toward Derek’s pecs on his face fast enough, snatching his hand back to clutch at his chest and looking at Allison with his eyes looking frenzied with horror like he’d just groped Derek. Allison gives him a dreary look thinking that maybe he was exaggerating the look because seriously, they were just pecs, Stiles, you didn’t even have any ill intentions behind your actions. Derek doesn’t notice any of that because he just follows the motion of Stiles’ hand with a glazed look on his eyes before he registers Stiles’ words and eyeballs him.

“You think I’m ashamed of being caught reading books?” Derek gives him a disappointed look as if he was thinking something along the lines of ‘look at what technology has done to you all’.

“How should I know, I’ve seen you reading a book, like, only once, and I’m not sure you were even actually reading the book or pretending to.” Stiles argues.

“You paid attention to that?” Derek asks sounding taken aback.

“It left a huge impression on me because you didn’t seem like the type to like light reading.” Stiles admits unapologetically.

“Judging me by my looks, how original.” Derek mutters derisively.

Stiles looks indignant. “Derek, you came off as a violent homeless creep with no qualms about murdering people from our interactions, it’s hard to pin a personality on that when you’re worried about other things –such as, I don’t know, maybe _trying to stay alive till dinner_.” Stiles tells him frantically. Derek’s lips twitch into a grimace for a fleeting moment.

Allison exchanges an awkward glance with Lydia. Lydia shrugs in a ‘just go with it’ manner. Allison isn’t sure she is prepared for Derek and Stiles sorting out their issues on top of her car with her present.

“So yes, I was shocked to see you handling a book properly.” Stiles finishes.

“Your books were collecting dust like it was their passion, Stiles, and you’re telling me you could tell I was handling a book properly?” Derek asks incredulously. Allison pays particular attention to how Derek completely ignores the ‘violent homeless creep’ comment. How Stiles went from that to mooning over ‘his stubble because it looks like art how long do you think he spends grooming it everyday Allison it looks like it takes a lot of effort wow so much hard work’ is something Allison clearly missed.

Stiles looks extremely offended. “I was busy keeping my grades up and trying not to get killed by my best friend, okay? I didn’t have time to tidy my things.”

“You just lied with the last part.” Derek informs him smugly.

“I can just search the internet for all the information I need. I don’t have time to swoon reading cheesy pathetic romance novels.” Stiles tells him with assurance like the part where he lied didn’t happen.

“Because obviously everything written on paper is that.” Derek drawls sounding bored like Stiles’ choice of weapon to try riling him up didn’t even amuse him.

“What did you buy then?” Stiles asks after hesitating for a while, looking like wavering between which direction to take the conversation to before admitting defeat to his curiosity.

“Well, they were all things on the supernatural, and some extra books on history.” Derek tells him. He shifts the arm wrapped around Stiles higher up, curling the hand around the side of his chest and holding him closer.

“You sure your source is reliable? Because not everything they write in those books is true.” Stiles says.

Derek smirks at him. “I know- I’m counting on it.”

Stiles gapes at him, Derek glances at his mouth for a fleeting moment. “You bought them so could laugh at them? You could just read everyone’s theories on the internet for free, why would you waste all that money on _books_?”

“I’m not looking forward to wearing ugly glasses like you’ll end up doing.” Derek tells him with a grin spreading across his face as he talks. Allison tries imagining Stiles in thick black rimmed square shaped glasses and can’t help the quiet snort that escapes her.

“You’re actually saying that because you don’t know how to use a laptop, it’s okay, Derek, nothing to be embarrassed about.” Stiles tells him sounding sympathetic.

Derek glares looking into his eyes like he was trying to traumatize him by burning the intensity of it into his brain permanently. Stiles just looks back into his eyes openly without turning it into a glare, wrapping the hand he had clutched to his chest over Derek’s shoulder closest to him and placing his chin there, trying to smother a smile by biting his lower lip, raising his eyes brows looking victorious. Allison looks away after what feels like hours to her when they don’t move an inch from being wrapped around each other with their eyes locked. Lydia eyes Allison warily, mouthing ‘what’s happening?’ pointing to the roof. Allison shakes her head and Lydia side eyes her rigidly in alarm like she does every time she thinks Allison is going to burst into tears suddenly after they watch a touching movie of Allison’s choice and Allison lets the feelings stew too long. It makes Allison wonder what her face looks like.

Allison looks back up jerkily and raises her crossbow in time –she didn’t realize she’s lowered it- when she hears Stiles let out a shrill “Oh my God” to follow the shape dropping down from the top of her car to the ground with a thud at her feet. Derek presses his lips together with his face screwed up in extreme discomfort for a moment before the look morphs into one of annoyance as he glares up at Allison and then at Stiles poking his head out with his hands splayed out on the surface like he wished he had claws to clutch into the roof of Allison’s car.

Allison takes her eyes off them for one moment- _one tiny and what she assumed insignificant moment_.

Derek grits out “You injured me” at Stiles from the ground.

Stiles looks guilty before crying out “You were sniffing me!” defensively.

Derek throws a hand out towards Stiles. “Give me your Reese bar.”

“Why.”

“You injured me.”

“ _Because I thought you were going to bite my throat out._ ”

“I just changed my mind about sharing it with you.”

“I thought you were _attacking_ me!”

“I would have moved faster in that case.”

“You’re a werewolf, I don’t have time to sit around for you to move faster.”

“I could’ve died if I was human!”

“So you _were_ going to bite me, that’s why you keep changing the topic isn’t it?”

“Do you want me to bite you?”

“Okay, now you’re threatening me.”

“No, you sound like you want me to bite you.”

Stiles narrows his eyes at Derek before slowly shifting till he was sitting with his legs dangling from the side. Then he pats a pocket on the top right chest of his green –black plaid and takes out the Reese bar before tearing it open dramatically in one go and pausing to give Derek a haughty look before taking one out and stuffing it in his mouth.

He holds the other one towards Allison. Derek glares at her. Stiles shakes it pointedly when Allison doesn’t make a move to take it.

“You can have it.” Allison tells Stiles. Stiles throws Derek a quick look.

“Or you could give it to Derek.” Allison suggests unsurely.

Allison he tried to bully it out of me, why aren’t you on my side?” Stiles whispers loudly, pretending Derek wouldn’t hear.

Derek throws Stiles a glower. “I wasn’t bullying you.” He says curtly sounding greatly piqued.

“You told me to give it to you. Demanded. Ordered. Bullied.”

“You were carrying it around instead of eating it; I was saving it from rotting.” Derek shoots back seriously.

“I was saving it for later! You,” Stiles points at Derek, “are a delinquent.” Derek gives Stiles an unimpressed look.

“I’m not the one with a restraining order.”

“Yes I have a restraining order, but it’s not by choice because Scott wouldn’t agree on killing Jackson.”

“It’s _Jackson_.”

“I told you, Scott wouldn’t agree on killing Jackson no matter how much I tried to convince him.”

“You – you wanted to kill Jackson?” Derek raises his eyebrows at him, pressing his lips together to stop them from twitching.

“Don’t give me that look, I know you were up for killing him too.” Stiles reminds him with a pointed look.

“You could’ve just joined me then.” Derek says giving Stiles a fond look, his lips pressed together into a stretched line with the sides curved upwards, the corners of his eyes crinkled and eyes sparkling. Allison couldn’t find anything else to categorized it as but a ‘aw my baby and I are so in sync’ look, however more distressing than that was Derek not finding a lie to call Stiles out on.

Allison clears her throat loudly, Derek giving her a shocked look like he forgot she was there before leaping up and snatching the chocolate covered cylinder from Stiles and popping it in his mouth. Stiles pushes his lips out in a pout, wrinkling his brows to convey his irritation. It doesn’t last long as he swears and swats at Derek when Derek moves toward him to situate himself between his legs and tuck his hands in the fold of his knees, curling his fingers snugly around Stiles’ kneecaps.

“In case you haven’t noticed, my knees are strategically placed to break your teeth right now.” Stiles tells Derek, flailing his hand around when Derek gives him a bemused look but doesn’t move his hands.

Derek gives him a flat look. “Did you miss where my claws are Stiles?” There were indeed claws now.

“I will shove an arrow up your ass so hard you’ll never walk if you shove your claws up his.” Allison growls out in warning without thinking.

Derek closes his eyes looking pained.

“’If’? ‘ _If_ ’? Allison I did not dream of loosing my virginity with my guts bleeding, ‘if’ is not very reassuring!” Stiles lets out in a strangled whimper, his mouth contorted in horror.

“What the hell are you all doing out there?” Lydia demands from inside the car.

“I meant I can throw him into the woods!” Derek flings out looking extremely mortified. It sounded close to a whine.

“What? No, no, no, you can’t do that, have you noticed how fragile and defenseless I am?” Stiles says flapping his hands at Derek and giving the hands still tucked under his knee panicked looks.

“I was just going to put you down.” Derek informs him simply.

Stiles stops and makes a show of narrowing his eyes at Derek critically. Derek rolls his eyes, slides his fingers higher up Stiles’ legs, Stiles going still and just staring at the motion, and jerks him forward by the thighs, earning a yelp from Stiles.

“No no no no don’t throw me into the woods!” Stiles says hysterically wrapping his arms around Derek’s head and hooking his ankles together behind Derek with the edge of his converses digging into the shirt and wrinkling it, Derek stumbling a few steps back.

Derek makes a sound like a groan muffled by the base of Stiles’ throat. He lets his hands fall to his sides with his shoulders set in resignation but wraps them tightly around Stiles’ waist promptly when Stiles wiggles against him and fists his hands into the olive henley at the shoulders in a failed attempt to climb higher.

“Because I can feel your nose pressed against me and breathing in deeply, I have you ask, are you smelling me?” Stiles asks all of a sudden.

“No, my face is plastered to your neck and I’m breathing against it.” Derek tells him dully after a pause, angling his face up to free it from being trapped, his nose bumping against Stiles’ jaw, Stiles tilting his head to the side to give him space, Derek staring at his stretched neck.

“Derek just put Stiles down.” Allison asks despairingly.

“I can when he stops trying to climb me like I’m a tree.” Stiles swears with a stunned look before quickly untangling his limbs from around Derek at those words. Derek presses Stiles closer with a hand under a thigh and another circling the waist to stop him from falling, letting him slip down slowly with care, Stiles resolutely keeping his eyes above Derek’s head, Derek studying Stile’s face with focus while letting Stiles drag down against him.

“Stop treating this like a game.” Allison lets out quietly in irritation.

Eventually when Stiles’ feet touch the ground he falters back, Derek keeping his hands in contact with Stiles till he gets out of reach and ducks inside the car, crawling in on all fours, Derek swallowing visibly and eyeing the beige cargo pants covering Stiles, his hands balled fists. He backs away when Stiles peeks at him after settling down, glancing at Allison and frowning at the strict look she directs at him.

“I’m not playing.” Derek mutters tensely while passing Allison on the way to his car.

~o~

“So…..restraining orders.” Isaac starts. Scott rolls his head towards him to give him an unhappy look.

Isaac keeps going. “I’ve discerned a pattern here, you have a restraining order, Stiles has a restraining order, I was a fugitive once –“

“Yes, Isaac, I get it, we’re a pack of delinquents.” Scott tells him with an involuntary smile.

Isaac makes a noise of disagreement from where the two of them were leaned against the wall at the side of the beauty parlor Deputy Bale had stopped at. It was closed but the owner was her mother apparently and greeted her in. If it turns out to be a family of supernatural threats Scott was going to start howling in tears at the unfairness of everything -in his mind, not literally of course.

Their town wasn’t even that appealing.

Maybe it was the lacrosse.

Scott remembers Deaton’s speech before he, Allison and Stiles sacrificed themselves to the nematon and lets out a groan.

“Lydia’s not a delinquent yet.” Isaac notes.

“She poisoned everyone with wolfs bane on her birthday party.” Scott informs.

“That’s…… of course she did.” Isaac mutters wearily.

Scott sees Deputy Bale coming out and shakes Isaac by the arm to get his attention. She gets into her cruiser and drives off slowly, Scott and Isaac running out of the alley when she was far enough. Scott and Isaac both agreed staying silent in the town when following a car while staying out of sight was decidedly harder than creeping through the woods.

~o~

“You can’t leave me here all alone!” Scott hollars at Isaac as Isaac dashes away as fast as possible without dropping on all fours while Scott remains fixed with his hands raised in the air with Deputy Bale’s retired fbi agent father’s gun aimed at him from one side and Deputy Bale’s gun aimed at him from the back, the light from the cruiser and retired agent Bale’s car blinding him from making out the duo’s faces in the alley around the corner from the saloon the cruiser had returned to after leading them randomly around town.

“I don’t think the whole pack having restraining orders is good for our image!” Isaac’s voice carries to Scott but the clearly not to the Bales because the Deputy’s father is going, “Sweetie, why do you attract nuthouse escapees wherever you go?” in a long suffering manner and the Deputy is replying, “For the last time dad, that happened only twice!” with a groan.

~o~

“Are you okay?” Allison says with her head turned towards Stiles.

Stiles looks confused. “Yes…?”

Allison specifies, “You sounded terrified when you screamed,” gnawing on her bottom lip in worry.

“No! I mean, I didn’t realize it was Derek, so I freaked.” Stiles reveals. 

Allison gapes at him in disbelief. “Stiles he had no right to do that, do you have any idea what you sounded like?”

“You sounded like someone had started the process of dragging your guts out inch by inch.” Lydia offers ruthlessly.

Stiles groans letting his head fall back against the seat and squeezing his eyes shut with a grimace, wrapping his arms around his torso protectively. “Oh my God, I did not need that image in my head, there’s no way I’m sleeping tonight.”

Lydia rolls her eyes.

Stiles squints his eyes open and spies Allison pouting at him.

“Allison, it’s fine, he, uh- he apologized.” Stiles hedges.

That’s hard to imagine. “He apologized?”

“He apologized.” Stiles agrees reverently.

“He said ‘I’m sorry’?” Allison presses.

Stiles shrugs nonchalantly. Allison looks at him expectantly. Eventually Stiles starts with hesitation, “Well, he didn’t say anything, he sort of, was nice to me.” Stiles offers with a hopeful grimace.

Allison gives him an alarmed look. Was Derek abusive? There’s no way Stiles can do anything against a werewolf, Derek being born one still had a better handle on things than Scott and Isaac, it’s not entirely impossible for someone to stay quiet out of fear of retribution. Why didn’t he come to the Argents?

“Stiles,” Allison says softly, “does he treat you like this often?”

Lydia shots Allison and alarmed look, likely having caught onto her line of thought.

Stiles just gives her a confused look.

“What Allison is meaning to ask, is that, Stiles, is Derek Hale intimidating you into doing his bidding?” Lydia says to prompt an answer out of Stiles when he takes too long for her liking.

“Okay, why is everyone assuming Derek frightens me?” Stiles offers sounding snubbed. Allison makes a whine in frustration.

“Stiles, he didn’t apologize, him being ‘nice’ doesn’t cut it.” Allison snaps at him.

“Look, he hugged me and tried calming me down and looked guilty okay, maybe he was going to say ‘I’m sorry’ but then you came out.” Stiles says.

"Are you sure he was trying to calm you down or getting you to shut up?” Lydia asks drolly.

Stiles looks at her in aggravation. “He was trying to calm me down, okay? He pulled me into a hug with hands rubbing my back and everything and made ridiculously soft soothing noises and said my name along with ‘hey, it’s okay, it’s me’ and I’m pretty sure no one says ‘hey, it’s okay, it’s me’ when planning harm because being harmed is obviously not okay with anyone.”

Allison crinkles her brows together, letting the words color her imagination.

“For someone frenzied in panic you sure recounted the words confidently.”

“Lydia, I have excellent verbal memory. Plus the adrenaline made me hyperaware of what was happening. I expect you of all people to know what adrenaline is.”

Lydia just smirks mockingly. “Are you sure he didn’t hold your hand in there somewhere?”

“I am going to ignore you right now and relive my hug with Derek Hale.”

Allison makes a noise of protest at the back of her throat.

Stiles sighs. “Look, he thought we were tailing him, can’t we just be glad he doesn’t hate us yet?” Stiles says sounding strangely resigned.

Allison frowns. “You think he’s going to find out?”

Stiles shrugs. “I don’t know. He caught us, didn’t he?”

Allison pauses before asking, “You think he’s going to hate it if he catches us? We have a valid reason, Stiles.”

“I know, I just don’t know if he’ll let us explain that ‘hey Derek, sorry for trying to keep an eye on you but we don’t want anyone else dying of some mass murderer manipulating you with their defenselessness.’ He’ll probably never trust us ever again if he catches us.”

Allison lets out a huff of laughter. Derek never trusted them anyways. Allison and Lydia aren’t in the same list as Stiles.

“You’re all terrible at investigation people.” Lydia states.

“Wait, why, why would you say that?” Stiles blurts out sounding insulted.

Lydia makes a show of humming thoughtfully before saying, “Let’s see- Scott is in jail, Allison and you were caught and Isaac is hiding outside the sheriff’s station.”

“You got caught too!” Allison snipes.

“I am not part of the tracking, I am just driving the car under instructions from all of you – and an unwilling participant.” Lydia snipes.

Stiles glares at her. “Oh, now you’re an unwilling participant.”

“Yes. And if Derek Hale gets a restraining order against me I am telling him your plan.” Lydia glares at Stiles in the rearview mirror.

"Lydia what is wrong with you?” Stiles snaps at her.

“What is wrong with me? What’s wrong with you, what the hell was that all about?”

Allison frowns. “Lydia what are you talking about?”

“He threatened to kidnap you, Stiles. He dragged you out of the car like a predator. A hug does not make it okay. Unless there’s something else I should know that everyone else knows but I clearly don’t?” Lydia says heatedly.

“You’re kidding me, right?” Stiles says, exchanging a bewildered glance with Allison at Lydia’s antics.

Lydia gapes at the two of them in disbelief.

“Have you all forgotten what he’s capable of? You,” Lydia glares at Allison, “put your crossbow down. He had Stiles and you put your crossbow down.”

“Because Allison saw Derek was kidding, okay?” Stiles defends.

Lydia gives Allison a fleeting look showcasing her dissatisfaction.

“He wasn’t going to hurt Stiles.” Allison mutters after a long while.

“Oh my God, I can’t believe you’re taking this seriously.” Stiles tells Lydia.

Lydia pointedly doesn’t look at them.

“Lydia, aren’t you overreacting a little? Where the hell is this coming from?” Stiles asks. Lydia doesn’t reply.

“We’re not hiding anything from you.” Allison tells Lydia. Lydia gives a withering look. Stiles exchanges a glance with Allison and shrugs at her in question. Allison shakes her head in confusion.

“Derek’s at his loft. At least his car is.” Stiles says after a while of staring at the laptop.

Lydia remains quiet.

“It could just be Cora’s cell phone there.” Stiles presses on in hope of a response.

Lydia doesn’t say anything.

“Cora just sent me a text, Derek’s at the loft.” Allison offers showing her cell phone.

Lydia doesn’t react. It was like the two of them were not even in the car.

“I’ll always have my crossbow directed at Derek from next time.” Allison tells Lydia uncertainly in hope of a response.

Lydia rolls her eyes and Stiles gives Allison a glare.

 

~o~

 

Peter raises a brow from where he lay lounging on the couch at all the books trapped in Derek’s arms when Derek walks into the loft. Cora rolls her eyes at Derek and passes by the couch, lifting Peter’s cell phone from where he offers it on his palm with a smirk directed at Derek. Derek ignores them and walks in the direction of his room, spying Cora firing off a text. Derek frowns. It looks like she really did loose her cell phone.

“Cora where’s your cell phone?”

Peter directs his smirk at Cora. Cora gives him a glare before looking back at Derek.

“I dropped it somewhere.” Cora tells him with a straight face, sounding strangely defensive.

Derek shifts his weight from one foot to another. “Do you need a new one?”

Cora’s composure breaks for a moment and Derek catches her looking troubled and then reassured before she shakes her head in refusal and directs a small smile at him, her eyes soft. Derek jerks his head at her with a small smile of his own before retreating to his room.

He dumps all the books on his bed and sits down with a deep exhale. In the end the trio had changed directions after a call from the sheriff. It’s not like he was listening for any specific reason, he was just alarmed at the thought they could be following him. All of them were quiet during the whole ride. It was possible they knew he could hear them if he wanted, but it still sounded strange not hearing a word out of Stiles yet knowing he was there. All Derek could hear was the sound of his heart beating steadily (along with Allison and Lydia but he wasn’t playing attention to them, after a while theirs turned into background noise thankfully).

It was better than the sound it made when Derek pulled him out. He could still feel his hand tingling with the feeling of Stiles’ cool hand clenched tightly around his, the other hand twisted in Derek’s shirt and eyes blown wide with fear before the stare turned to one of relief and exasperation while Derek tries soothing him by rubbing a palm along the arch of his back. Derek heard himself say something as well, but he doesn’t remember it exactly. He just hopes it wasn’t something stupid since he wasn’t thinking things through, just probably said whatever he wanted.

This is what happens when he thinks too hard. He should’ve just walked towards them and asked if they were following him instead of running towards them head on and leaping on top of their car. Stiles sounded impressed though, so he couldn’t regret it _too_ much. Then he spent way too much time on the top of the car contemplating how to do things next. It’d probably look silly if he just knocks on their window next, it definitely didn’t sound like it could live up to his approach towards their car. What was he supposed to do anyways, knock on Stiles’ window and smile at him? Wait, what would Stiles think of that, what if he gets his hopes up? Or worse, what if he thinks he can’t handle it and evades Derek forever? Allison looked like she knew Derek wasn’t ignorant, what if Stiles knew too and thought Derek was playing him?

It still didn’t matter in the end though; he forgot it all in the embrace of the easy interactions, Stiles’ engaging words, long thinly muscled arms and the delicate skin stretched across fragile bones of his wrist visible from where the sleeves had ridden up, and shapely hands with veins visible vulnerably. Not to mention the twinkle in his eyes and the emotions fleeting across his face unreserved all the time, the way his lips wrap themselves around words. His tongue, pink and smooth looking when it makes an appearance, the skin pulled taught along his pale neck, peppered with dots here and there and smooth wiry muscles stretched, long warm legs reaching behind Derek and wrapped around him, warm lean body radiating heat from the core where it presses along Derek’s, the vibrations of his heart pounding and the smell wafting off his skin filling Derek’s senses everywhere.

Derek wonders if the legs are long enough for the ankles to cross behind his neck if he feels the weight of those thighs pressing comfortable against his chest with those kneecaps rested at the dip where his shoulders are joined to his neck while he threads his fingers into Stiles’ lean ones to feel the bones of those digits digging against his and presses his face against that neck to sink his teeth into it and feels the warmth of that front flushed with heat - well that escalated quickly, not a place where he was going, nope, no, although he did just go there in excruciating details, details so detailed that he was already reacting to it while Cora and Peter were within sensing distance, although he didn’t go to detail about what Stiles’ face would look like or what sounds he’d make- where was Peter’s laptop, it doesn’t matter, he could just open a book, any book, look at all the books here, just make a decision, oh there’s a book, doesn’t matter, words won’t register in his head now, maybe pictures will, pictures, pictures, why do none of these pages have pictures, and there’s a picture- oh that looks absolutely gruesome, good thing he already ate.

 

~o~

 

Sheriff Stilinski looks at everyone in the room. Melissa was positively seething in the seat across from him, Scott occupying other seat to her right looking pale and swallowing involuntarily when sheriff looks at him. Stiles and Lydia were studiously avoiding his gaze from the seats lined against the wall.

“Where’s Isaac?” The sheriff asks.

Scott turns slowly to look at Stiles and Lydia, Lydia looks at Stiles pointedly and Stiles looks at both of them in bewilderment before letting out a huff of disbelief and looking at his dad slowly in resignation. Sheriff Stilinski bores him patiently with an expectant stare. He has all night.

“Allison’s outside with her car……hiding Isaac.” Stiles offers gradually.

The sheriff nods in acceptance. Melissa was still seething. He opts to steer clear of her for now. Then realizes his next line of questioning won’t agree.

“And what was Isaac and……Scott doing following Deputy Bale?” Melissa glares at Scott. Scott goes speechless under the pressure.

There’s a knock and then Allison slips into the room, sitting between Stiles and Lydia. She stares back unflinchingly when the sheriff stares at her. He can’t help the smile that starts and Allison just smiles back sheepishly.

When he looks back at Scott he was still trying to think of something. The sheriff sighs and then leans closer to the group, giving them all a secretive look and asking, “Does this have anything to do with……” he searches around for words, not sure what to call it, “………you know.” He gives them all a pointed look. They all just look confused.

“………Werewolves?” Allison tries hesitantly. The sheriff nods in affirmation.

“Well, you could say that.” Scott says reluctantly.

The sheriff makes a noise of understanding. Then he says, “I’ll call Derek Hale and then you all can tell me –“and the reaction he gets is confusion because Scott, Stiles, Allison and Lydia all yell ‘no’ simultaneously and start talking loudly in attempts to make themselves be heard, Stiles going as far as leaping out of his seat and Allison tackling him and pressing his head into the seat while Stiles waves his arms around in protest and Lydia coming to his desk and ranting. Melissa just glares at all of them and all the deputies were starting to stare at the commotion so he grimaces and raises his hands to wave the kids shut.

He looks at all of them and settles on Scott. Scott doesn’t like it from the looks of it.

“I thought Derek was on your side?” He asks Scott.

Scott gapes at him in search of words before eventually saying, “Well he is, but there’s nothing going on right now, nothing at all, no one is dying –except for the dead body on the way to my house- but it’s gone now, it’s not there, I didn’t know it was there till Stiles told me-“ Stiles looks at Scott in alarm, “we didn’t have anything to do with it.” Scott ends earnestly.

Lydia presses her lips together, staring at the ceiling.

“Then give me a really good reason for why you were tailing one of my deputies.” The sheriff tells Scott with a stern look. Then he directs the look to the rest of the kids because he has no doubt they are all involved in this.

“It’s……we wanted to be sure of something.” Scott evades.

“Like what? Wait –is this –is she a werewolf? Oh God, wait don’t tell me- is she danger?”

Scott shakes his head frantically before stopping and saying hesitantly, “Well……”

“We’re not sure.” Allison offers helpfully.

“So something is going on.” Melissa tells them all with a glare.

“Mom, we’re not sure.” Scott tells her. Melissa glares at her, Scott sinking lower in his seat as a result.

“Why didn’t you just tell me? I can pull out her records, talk with the sheriff at her earlier station, and check if anything strange happened in every town she was in.” He tells them.

Scott frowns with a thoughtful look on his face. Lydia looks at the sheriff and gives him a nod, her eyes showing her recognition of his usefulness. Allison nudges Stiles and raises her eye brows at him. Stiles gives her a defensive look with a jerk of his shoulder and brings his hands up to press at his lips before squinting at the sheriff carefully. Stilinski gives him an expectant look. Stiles bites his lips with a grimace and with a dismissive flap of his hand says, “Yeah, sorry about that dad, I just forgot I told you.”

Sheriff Stilinski frowns. “You forgot?” He asks in confusion.

Stiles spreads his hands out with palms on display. “I was- I guess I got used to keeping it all from you, so involving you didn’t cross my mind.” Stiles finishes before ducking his head and raising his eyebrows at him in question of his understanding.

“Well, I know now, so I’d like to be kept informed about everything.” Demanding Stiles tell him anytime anything happens where his son plans to get involved in didn’t seem fit in the presence of an audience. He didn’t imagine having to go through a phase of worrying constantly about what dangers Stiles was getting into,  not when the threats were greater than anything he can possibly imagination. Stiles was involved for too long, there’s no way he could be persuaded to let go of it, not with him knowing what was out there and that his friends were out there. The sheriff really didn’t want to go through the exhaustion and tension of an argument only to have Stiles shut him out completely and still help around in secret, staying in the loop was definitely preferable to loosing his son completely.

“Even if I can’t help.” He adds as an afterthought, staring at Stiles and giving him a earnest look when he lifts his head. He has a gun, he’s the sheriff, and obviously he can help. For teenagers they’ve been doing a suspiciously good job all on their own, maybe Derek Hale is supervising, he looks like the only adult besides Chris Argent. He could talk to them, drag Derek down to the station, or drag Chris down. Hopefully they have speeding tickets. Then again Derek’s a werewolf, does that make him better at everything requiring motor activity? Maybe he can talk to Deaton, though he doesn’t have much hope there, Deaton is annoyingly good at eluding. He’ll talk to Stiles and his group, and then the adults.

Stiles nods frantically with a placating look and says reverently, “Sure, dad.” Sheriff Stilinski can’t help but snort in return.

“So! Start talking.” He prompts all of them.

 

~o~

 

“Uh….dad?” Stiles was staring at him in bafflement. Scott was constantly shifting his eyes from the sheriff, to his mom who was also staring at the sheriff incredulously and putting a hand across her mouth to stop smiling, the uplifted corners of her mouth were still visible, to the group sitting behind him.

“I think we’re missing something.” Allison suggests while staring at the sheriff worriedly.

The deputies were starting to stare again from outside.

“Dad!” Stiles tries again. It doesn’t working.

“I think it was too much for him.” Lydia whispers loudly.

“Oh my God dad, stop laughing! Why are even laughing in the first place, is it because two humans and a banshee tried tailing a werewolf?” Sheriff Stilinski shakes his head side to side from where he had his forehead stuck to an arm strewn on top of his desk, the other arm scattering files all over the desk but he doubted the movement registers on all of them because of how hard he was shaking all over. He tries talking but he can’t, the only thing coming out of him was laughter.

“You know, we could successfully tail a werewolf if we wanted, Allison is a hunter and super skilled you know, and as hard as it might be to believe I can keep quiet when the situation calls for it.” Sheriff Stilinski’s arm slips and he almost falls to the floor but manages to stay secure with a hand at the desk in time, doubling over in laughter.

“Sheriff, sir?” Scott tries. The sheriff waves a hand at all of them and takes his sweet time letting the laughter die down. Eventually when he can sit straight everyone was giving him wary looks.

He coughs and then pulls a drawer open, rummaging around before pulling out two files. He opens, putting both of them side by side and mentions for the group to come closer. When they do, with Stiles coming to stand beside him, the rest of them leaning over his desk to get a better look, he points at the two pictures of his deputies, and then gives them pointed look.

When Stiles says, “Dad, I don’t see what you’re trying to point out here,” the sheriff points at the names on both the files.

“They’re………both Deputy Bale.” Allison says slowly.

Stiles fidgets at the face of sheriff Stilinski’s raised eyebrows. “In my defense she works with you so I panicked. And I totally went on Melissa’s description.”

Melissa gives him a glare, “Oh, don’t put this on me. This one’s on all of you, if you’d just asked the sheriff you wouldn’t be running around town _stalking_ people.”

“It was a stakeout!” Scott protests.

The sheriff shakes his head, smiling in amusement. He puts a hand around Stiles’ shoulder and then points on the picture to his left. “This one is the Deputy Bale currently admitted in the hospital, Deputy Kudow dubbed her ‘Deputy Bale with the dimpled smile’ –don’t let Bale hear you say that –and the other one,” he points at the one to his right, “is the Deputy Bale you all were following. Kudow dubbed her ‘Deputy Bale with the beauty spot’. It helps greatly when you forget their first names.”

Lydia tilts her head with a frown at the pictures before glaring at Scott and Stiles. “They don’t even look the same.”

Stiles cringes. Scott doesn’t notice the glare aimed at him.

“Hey, at least we learned which process of stalking gets you caught, right?” Stiles says.

“So?” Lydia asks.

“ _So_ we can avoid that next time.” Stiles says flatly.

“Hold on.” The sheriff crosses his arms. “You can’t go around _stalking_ people, there’s so many times I can keep it under the rugs till people start talking, not to mention someone getting injured.” He turns a stern eye towards Scott. “You’re lucky you weren’t shot, I don’t think Bale’s dad was too happy finding his daughter being stalked. He’s coming to the station right now.”

Melissa gets up and puts a hand on Scott’s arm. “You’re going home young man,” Melissa tells Scott and he nods reluctantly, she then turns to the sheriff and smiles apologetically, the sheriff waving her off with a smile.

“We should get going.” Lydia tells Allison and they take their leave quickly.

“What are you going to do about Bale’s dad?” Stiles asks after a while of just staring at the files.

“He’s not coming. I just wanted Scott to realize how the consequences could’ve been.” He hesitates before adding, “Now look, I know telling you not to get involved isn’t going to work,” he avoids looking at Stiles’ face because he caught sight of the shoulders slumping in guilt out of the corner of his eye, for all the times his job was in jeopardy, for all the times he couldn’t trust his own son, “so I’m not going to stop you, but just,” he struggles before getting out, “think about what it’s like for me. I’m already having a hard time letting you keep staying involved, I don’t think worrying about what you’re getting up to out of my sight would be too good for my heart,” using that was low, but he had priorities, “so have mercy on me and just keep me informed, will you? I’m your father, and I love you, son, don’t you ever forget that. So next time, just –just tell me, okay?” When he looks at Stiles, Stiles was nodding affirmatively, lips pursed. The sheriff gives his shoulder a squeeze and offers a smile meant to reassure when Stiles braves a glance at him, it makes Stiles wrap him in a hug.

The sheriff pats his back and settles a hand on the back of his head. “I’m sorry I didn’t believe when you first told me about werewolves.” Stiles huffs a wheezing laugh. “Don’t worry about it dad, you still listened to me.” He says sounding thankful. The sheriff sighs. ‘Werewolves’.

“Now get going and go straight home, you have school tomorrow.” 

Stiles heaves a sigh, releasing his dad from the hug and rubbing his eyes before saying good night and wandering out. 

Stilinski calls one of the new Deputies in- not Deputy Bale, who is still terrified at the thought of having gained an adolescent stalker, poor thing – and asks him to follow Stiles till he gets home. Follow him discreetly. Very discreetly. So discreetly that he doesn’t get a call with complains of ‘dad one of your Deputies is following me why would you do that to me’. 

And when later the Deputy reports back that Stiles went straight home and the lights were off and the jeep was still in the driveway when he drove by the second time so he’s probably sleeping, the sheriff takes note of the guy as Deputy Parrish and almost cries tears of joy because it indicated the presence of one less incompetent new Deputy in his station. Now he hopes the guy just manages to stay alive.


End file.
